The Dying Cricket
by Hobby-Writing
Summary: A tale exploring morality, murder and walking that fine line between right and wrong. Explores some dark themes. One of the team discovers what exactly pushes a person to turn from cop to criminal. Largely Don Danny friendship, but the others are there
1. Chapter 1

Prologue. Not sure when I'll get around to the next chapter, got a lot on at the moment. The rating might change in later chapters.

Disclaimer: Likely not going to repeat myself, so listen up. I don't any charaters on here you recognise from the tv series, however the plot is mine and so are any OCs that pop up.

**The Dying Cricket**

"Why?" It was a question asked so many times sometimes he feared it might have lost all meaning. The fundamental question of morality. What made that line between good and evil stand so clear in a human's mind. The human race didn't blip out of nowhere with a written record of what laws to abide by, judge, jury and officers standing by poised to enforce them at a moments notice. There had to be something hardwired, already there ready to guide you through life, show you right from wrong like a neuron map of jiminy cricket hidden beneath your skull.

To comfort a frightened infant, help an elderly woman cross the street, summon help when witnessing a car wreck. To allow a child to cry in pain, take out hate on those unable to fight back, commit murder. Where does a moral compass draw the line? Worse, what makes anyone cross that line into the dark depths fuelled by hate and greed. Is it merely a broken compass? A single write off human who is evil, nothing more but a flesh exoskeleton with a shattered cricket inside. Or is it something deeper, more frightening, the witnessing of what could have been and what might still become. Is evil a category distinct unto itself or a covered slippery slope you can't help but tumble down after that first fateful step?

"Because I wanted to, that's why" the suspect grins confirming his change in status from suspect to perp. Eyes shine wide and manic as he sniggers, hands fisting together on the interview table as if attempting to cling to the moment, savouring its putrid flavour. He's not an astounding looking man, average height, average weight, average looks. Certainly not much to motivate a second glance if you passed him on the street and not the usual burley male with too many tattoos and as little hair on his head as brains inside his skull that usually sprang into the everyday citizen's mind upon hearing the word 'criminal'.

Froth gathers in the corner of the man's yellow tinged mouth, matching the unique shade of his finger nails. An advert against smoking if there ever was one, though from the rather unattractive bloodshot eyes and the way he'd started sweating long before the hard questions it was unlikely to be the only drug he was using. What he doesn't realise is that he's not as formative as he thinks he is.

Guys like him came and went from the packed station house a good few dozen times a week. Hell, they were the reason the place is always packed to begin with. Not all were questioned on such abhorrent crimes of course, and not all were so loathsomely proud of what they'd done or for that matter could even remember the crime on which they were being questioned. But they'd all got there the same way, washed down a slippery slope with drugs and alcohol and no thought to reaching out a hand to stop themselves falling.

The detective sits unimpressed on the opposite side of the too often used table, drawing some peace of mind from the fact that while the waste of space may be laughing now, things were doubtful to be so humorous where he was going. Hard to laugh when your doing twenty-five to life behind bars.

"Can it chuckles and start giving me some real answers! Why kill the tourist?"

It was rare in this line of work to find someone who was somewhat courteous to talk to. He understands that. Colourful personalities some might say, others the more apt description in his opinion of down right scumbags. Just once however he wants to have a pleasant, respectful conversation with someone before locking them up. Just once would be nice.

"Cause it was fun" the man confesses displaying all his off colour teeth in a too wide smile. "Sides, it was only a tourist. Deserved to get stuck wearing that stupid get up anyhow. Wandering around the streets like he fucking owned the place."

The criminal leans in as if attempting to share a secret, but only manages to share the nauseating stench infesting his wheezing breath before he's pushed by the scrawny shoulders back into his chair by the uniformed cop behind him. Thank god for safety regulations. While this guy was clearly one of those criminals under the mistaken and sickening notion that killing someone was something to add a notch to his belt, a status symbol of sorts, he failed to realise that the only thing currently setting him apart wildly enough from the human race to raise eyebrows was a concerning lack of personal hygiene.

"You grew up here!" he yells instead attempting to ignore the verbal and physical orders to sit his ass back down. "I can tell by the accent, you know what its like. Seeing those no brained idiots walk around taking pictures of our city with their jaws down to their knees. He deserved what he got. Didn't even notice what I'd done at first. Kept looking from me to the knife as surprised as when he was ogling all those fucking buildings-"

"Hey, hey" The detective stands slamming his palms down hard on the metal table in a effort to shut him up. It works thank god and he's staring down the murderer. The thin faced man in his early thirties, mousy with that unwanted extra kick of bad sanitation, looking for the most part like an average working man though perhaps after spending a week or two locked somewhere with no shower, except for a single ring through his nose covered in almost as much grease as his slicked brown hair.

The well built cop stands his ground, holding his hands vice like on his bony shoulders keeping the unassuming man controlled and showing his dedication to his job like no other. There was no guessing the last time that jacket had been washed and the detective didn't want to know what could be hiding in that drooping mat of hair slithering across the officer's hands. He makes a mental note to invite the poor cop for a pizza sometime with the rest of the guys. Though a tad on the pink frilly side of life for his tastes, the word 'ewwwww' had rarely seemed more appropriate.

"The only idiot I see here is you. Take him outta my sight" he nods to the officer, signalling the end of the interview, the end of the case and the end of another life that never should have been taken away.

The sleaze ball was shouting again as soon as he's dragged from his seat, scraping the chair across the floor with him. Asking him even as he was forced, handcuffed kicking and screaming down the hall for some kind of agreement. Some kind of verification that he should have killed a husband, a loving father of two children just because his behaviour was different enough from his own to piss him off a little. Some kind of absolution.

No matter how proud they could be when faced with the evidence of their crimes, Detective Donald Flack got some consolidation from the fact that even before leaving his interview room ninety-nine percent of those cold proud killers would ask for some kind of confirmation or forgiveness. To him it showed that there was hope for a human race with crickets in their heads, chirping out right from wrong. That even when things got a little dizzy from drugs, alcohol, rage or passion, little old Jiminy Cricket could still sober up and say 'listen here, I think you've made a bit of a bungle out of this one'.

On another more terrifying level it made him worry. If people could commit crimes like assault, murder, rape with a cricket in their head what was there to stop a person with a healthy cricket going down the same path? If people were born with working crickets, then how did a murderer become a murderer, why did a struggling man turn to a life of crime and what held a good man to ignore the temptations and keep up that struggle?

How much hardship did it take before that voice in the back of your head became ignored or distorted beyond recognition? Worse, would you be able to realise it had even happened before it was too late and you were locked up for what you were, another criminal with a heartbroken cricket.


	2. Chapter 2

Internal affairs bureau detective Conner Staple wasn't a bad man. Though several years in IAB had traced his worries deep into his once youthful face, peppered his dark hair with flakes of grey and beaten his charming smile into a vacant glare the weathered detective had once wanted to make a difference. He was one of the very few who joined the internal affairs bureau without coercion, after all, what better way to improve a system than from the inside out? After nearly twenty years of seeing not only what people could do to other people, but what cops, the ones supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard than the public could do to people. IAB detective Stable wasn't sure what it was yet, but there had to be a better way.

He had once been very handsome; you could still see it in his face. The very few laugh lines that had survived from a time before the unsavoury truths had crippled anything otherwise worth finding amusing, they hinted at how much those now dull eyes had once sparkled while telling a joke or flirting with a beautiful woman. Too long ago he had lost that burning pride he'd had in himself and his job, the former distorting a once trim waistline into one solely dictated by grease dipped takeaways and convenience foods.

This case wasn't going to be one that lightened his burden of woes. Flipping open the folder with a calloused hand, he exhaled slowly, not shock but bitter disappointment forcing the breath from his lungs. There were a great many things that could drive one man to kill another, and not even the shine of a police badge warded off that particular burden of human nature. The first thing he had learnt on this job was that it wasn't a question of who, but a question of why that determined the killers from the rest of the population. Still, when such a comendated member of law enforcement had such a grim mountain of evidence piling up against him it felt particularly poignant.

When the best of us fall the loss is felt by all those left standing. It tarred a human face with something meant only for monsters to wear and in doing so smeared everyone within a certain radius with its putrid implications. Human nature was both assisted and limited by its need to categorise and in this case the public's attention would be drawn once again to the book cover, the police badge and forget that the contents of the man behind it were as varied and different from another officer as any member of the public.

The weary detective sighed, placing a steady hand on the solid metal table designed to keep a safe distance between a suspect and the interviewing officer. Finally Detective Stable managed to tear his drained gaze from the autopsy photograph, a somber scene particularly from the point of view of the once promising young detective sitting on the opposite side of the grilling slab. One bullet, just one tiny nine millimetre round directly between the drug dealer's eyes, execution style. Enough to end a life, and more than enough to destroy a career.

"The evidence is not painting a very positive picture, Detective Flack"

The room seemed to still as they locked eyes, the IAB detective's hard and jaded, endless pits of dull coal that had long since extinguished their last hope in the goodness of others, and the outcome of this case. Detective Donald Flack's icy and cold, their once bright blue depths dull with contempt and smouldering with a slow burning anger that appeared to have been stirring long before he had entered the interrogation room, and long before a unarmed dealer had been murdered by a gunshot to the head. With an unpleasant jolt Detective Stable realised he was looking at a mirror image of himself fifteen years ago when he had first lost faith in the system, burned out and furious at a system he had trusted to work, protect people, serve justice and make the world a safer place to live in.

Not receiving an answer other than a piercing glare he continued "Ballistics matched the bullet pulled from the victim to your weapon Detective Flack. The CSI's on the scene found no weapon on or nearby the body, now to me this is shaping up to be pretty cut and dry homicide."

A twitch was the only answer given as the young detective broke eye contact to gaze distractedly around the limited room as if the bare walls and ominously stained floor provided a much more enjoyable view than the middle aged detective's face, which Detective Stable didn't disagree with. Certainly his two ex wives would whole heartedly agree. But there was something deeper to it, from all the background he had got on Detective Flack, not only was his arrest record beaming with potential, everyone he had spoken to described him as someone who could charm the socks off an androphobic.

Looking through the recent cases he'd been working on nothing had particularly jumped out at him as different enough from any other case he had worked on to cause such a change to his behaviour, though sometimes it didn't take as much as people supposed. Sometimes it's a ordinary case, just like any other, and someone is hurt by someone else, just like any other and it's the monotony, the warped definition of normal that finally gets to a person to send them tumbling over that edge of right and wrong. Something could still turn up though, not all the most recent records had been as easy to unseal as others.

"Nothing to say in your defence Detective Flack?" Stable was trundling faster towards the familiar prickling fields of irritation and frustration at his latest assignment. Given his background, a cop, even a poster boy for law and order like Detective Flack falling off the deep end and killing someone was not beyond his scope of belief. However, even in a case like this there still had to be a why, a motive, even if it made no sense to anyone else. One last remnant of the hopeful officer he had once been stayed, even in the cold hopeless mind it now occupied, that impulse to know why an officer of the law would go against everything he had believed in and dwell in the lifestyle of the villain.

"The autopsy and crime scene photos confirmed the victim was kneeling before he was shot in the head." Detective Stable slammed the photographs in front of the seated man, having taken enough of the man's silence and terribly familiar jaded eyes. Multiple pictures spread haphazardly across the plain table, showing various views of a man calculatedly murdered before his time, black bullet hole between closed eyes contrasting painfully against the grey skin of a corpse. "Is that what you did? Did you make the victim get on his knees and beg for his life before you shot him in the head!"

"Don't fucking call him a victim!" Don Flack slammed both palms on the metal table top, the sound resonating around the gloomy bare brick room several times, then resonating through both the men's ears several more. His blue eyes had sharpened, jack-knifes glinting within each cerulean ocean, hands spasming upon the glossy images of the man all evidence pointed towards him having murdered. "He was a scumbag pure and fucking simple, the world is better off without him wandering the streets and all everyone cares about is _his_ rights and _his_ life. What about everyone else's? What about the kids he dealt drugs to, the people he hurt, the lives _he's _ruined, why is no one fucking worried about them?"

The young detective leant forward on his intentionally uncomfortable chair, arms folded over the ignored pictures of what could end his career and potentially his freedom. His hands worked their way into fists despite a clear effort to control the spilt fury, the muscles in his arms tensing visibly under the smart cloth of his suit in time with the tensing of his jaw. This was a man on his last straw if he had ever seen one, or maybe his last straw had come and gone leaving the executed corpse behind.

"Why?" Detective Stable managed at last, surprising himself by managing for the first time in countless similar cases to feel some loss at what this young man was looking down the barrel of in the future, if you could call it a future. Detective Flack had shown more potential than most he had investigated, the potential to really make a difference and now in one decision he had thrown it all away. How had he gotten from that charming, determined detective he had been told about to someone who would kill an unarmed man? "Why would you throw everything away for some lowlife drug dealer? What on earth was going through your head that you thought it was alright to kill someone, even him?"

"Why" the answer was small, muttered almost like he was speaking to himself. The man's broad shoulders started shaking and for a moment Stable thought he was crying, until he realised. His suspect was laughing, slow suppressed rolls of laughter that never quite reached his eyes, the younger man shook his head as if he'd been told a joke he found immensely funny, his warped expression portraying the fact that the question wouldn't be answered, at least not in a straight forward fashion.

"…why"

**Eight months ago:**

Heavy footfalls echoed throughout the grimy alley, the sharp noises vibrating against dreary brick, causing both rodent and human occupants alike to duck back into the cloaking darkness of doorways and crevices. It seemed to be a bright idea as moments later what could easily be described as the less nauseous more adequately dressed version of the hulk slammed his way recklessly through the narrow back street. A bare second after, hot on his heels a shorter average built man darted determinately after his herculean prey.

At six feet two inches in height the shorter man certainly wouldn't be considered so against the majority of the human population, but against his six feet eight inch powerhouse quarry he looked like a toothpick in a nice suit. Conventional business shoes hammered their way over the litter scattered concrete, wear from previous such maltreatment made invisible to the human eye only through the stealthy application of an abundance of black boot polish. Legs pumped like pistons beneath freshly pressed dark slacks, his tie, picked out carefully that morning to match his light blue eyes fluttered sideways under the arm of his similarly carefully deliberated pinstriped suit jacket. Much to his annoyance the blue striped shirt he had spent a good ten minutes painstakingly ironing was already rebelling against the impromptu chase in the form of deepening wrinkles.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck" Detective Don Flack muttered with each gasp of breath as he fought to keep up with the hulking suspect. The armed suspect, he reminded himself with a grimace, not that the mammoth needed a gun, at his height and at the very least 300 pounds weight, most of it being muscle he could easily classify as a deadly weapon himself.

"NYPD Mr Hart! Stop or I will shoot!" The tank of a man slipped with absurd fluidity for his size into a nearby branch of the haphazardly connected backstreets. Flack swore again at the endless winding maze and wondered why on earth they'd had to confront their suspect, one Owen Hart in one of the very few sections of Staten Island not yet renovated and suburbanised.

Not taking a moment to acknowledge the dedication, or for that matter stupidity he was showing, the incensed detective took pursuit again wondering not for the first time where the heck his partner for the shift, an occasionally annoying crime scene investigator by the name of Danny Messer had got to. The two detectives had approached the suspect together after skin and blood samples had been found under the nails of a female murder victim in a case they had been working on, a common occurrence particularly after a victim had been beaten to death. Needless to say, a search through CODIS, or combined DNA index system had kicked out 'Owen Hart' with a delightful resume of assault charges by his name.

Unfortunately, Owen Hart did not seem be as charmed with the idea of being the main suspect in a murder case as the detectives had been to have someone to question. An unfortunate disparity of opinions to be sure, and one that had lead to their current situation. Soon after they had entered the labyrinth between the mass of old buildings, Detective Messer had signalled something vaguely about cutting him off and darted nimbly down a side path. Considering the countless twists and turns taken since then, Danny was probably wandering around behind some godforsaken shack lost as a lamb drifted too far from its mother.

Detective Flack fought the urge to swear again, acceding to the requirement to conserve his oxygen as the advert for steroids charged his way around yet another corner, this time barely managing to stop himself colliding with the ten feet tall wall running along the right of this new direction. Flack followed dutifully, smacking a palm mid turn to the brick sloppily covered in thick white paint, a canvas that many a graffiti artist had apparently appreciated. With the suspect for now once again in his line of sight, he was just considering raising his weapon once more when out of nowhere the murder suspect he had been chasing for an exhaustive multitude of breathless heartbeats dropped mid run to the ground and lay there still.

Flack stalled, light blue eyes darting around bewildered at the scene in front of him as he struggled to regain his breath. Mr Hart hadn't fainted to the floor of his own free will. On top of the facedown man's body crouched none other than Danny Messer. The smaller detective perched with one foot on the back of the herculean's bulky shoulder and the other on the back of his sweat soaked white sleeveless t-shirt, reminding Flack absurdly of a picture of David versus Goliath.

"Stay down!" Danny yelled unnecessarily into the three hundred pound man's ear. All he got in return was a groggy pain filled groan. Owen Hart was more out of it than Don's uncle Mike after the annual family New Years Eve bash. The taller detective wondered for a moment whether Mr Hart would feel better if he broke to him his good fortune of not having Flack's sisters around to take advantage of this vulnerable time by making him 'pretty'. Then he inwardly shuddered at the mental picture of six foot eight beefy Owen Hart in his grandmother's bright red lipstick and purple eye shadow.

"When were you going to let me in on this little plan of yours?" Flack asked between rapid breathes, wishing his heartbeat would slow down to some semblance of normal as he reached down to help Danny put the semiconscious man in some cuffs. He considered the top of the ten foot wall and the fallen suspect not needing to be a detective to figure out where his partner had suddenly materialised from and what had led Owen Hart to take an unscheduled naptime.

"Now?" Danny Messer offered with that infectious Cheshire cat grin of his, looking infuriatingly composed and fresh.

Flack glowered darkly down at him, running a damp palm through his short black hair while standing uncomfortable in a once crisp, now soaked, rumpled and sullied suit. Danny's trademark mischievous grin didn't let up an inch, keeping eye contact with his twinkling blue eyes a shade or two greyer than Flack's own. His face was smaller than his taller companion, the jaw much less angler giving him a less stern appearance, that and his decreased height making him appear more harmless and considerably less like a cop than his dark haired friend.

Donald Flack had no doubts that his smaller colleague put these facts to his advantage at times, such as providing a less intimidating face for a suspect to confide in or as he was doing now, dissipating another's aggravation. Sadly knowledge did not mean overcoming and he felt the irritation recede in the wake of the pure sparkling brightness of that impish smile. His only consolidation was the fact that he had never met Danny as a child. He had seen pictures, shoved eagerly under his nose when tagging along on a visit to his mothers much to his friend's embarrassment, Danny had been bright blonde then, the colour darkening into its current dirty blonde as he'd aged. He'd also been small for his age, creating a small blonde kid with big blue eyes further magnified by glasses too large for his face that had all the necessary tools to wrap the world around his little finger. Forcing himself to look away from the almost inhumanly happy grin, Flack entertained the possibility that not much had really changed.

"Alright you're off the hook. It was a good call" Flack finally conceded, grudgingly helping heave Danny's dazed victim to his feet, a job easier said than done.

If possible Danny's grin widened at the admission, helping prop his human landing pad up before moving off to collect the man's weapon that had skidded further down the alley upon impact. The forensically talented detective carefully dropped the revolver into a transparent plastic bag pulled like a magic trick from the back pocket of his blue jeans. As of yet it was unrelated to their murder case, fists and feet appearing to have been enough to end the life of the young woman but if there's one thing he had learnt from his time as a crime scene investigator it was to cover all his bases.

"Alright Spiderman" Flack called over his shoulder "Lets get our friend jumbo here outta this maze so I can go change my shirt."

Chuckling, Danny stretched, drawing himself up to his full five feet nine inches in height, then headed to help his friend march the still befuddled suspect to the nearest street.

"So what made you so damn sure he'd head that way?" Flack queried on the elevator ride up to the lab, the base of operations for crime scene investigation. They'd gotten many a strange look back at the precinct, especially at Danny, doing his best along with Flack to guide a by then very conscious and thoroughly pissed off Owen Hart.

The behemoth suspect looked formidable enough next to Flack, but he made the smaller man look like a child. Mr Hart had eleven inches on him, nearly an entire foot and weighed more than twice that of the blond CSI. Road rash like wounds on the man's face and arms caused by skidding across concrete after Danny's weight had hit him mid-stride only added to the menacing image.

Despite the disproportion, Danny had taken it in his stride, using the man's burly arms handcuffed behind his back to steer him in the right direction while Flack kept one hand on the back of the suspect's sweat stained white t-shirt, employing his weight to keep the giant moving forward. The taller detective had openly sniggered at the expressions he'd received after telling those who asked that it had actually been Danny, not himself that had taken down the suspect. Danny of course had milked it for all he could, recounting the tale of strolling across the top of the wall merrily until he'd heard the approaching footfall, then settling poised to leap on top of his target as he'd run by.

"We just happened to be near my childhood stomping ground" Danny grinned at him, rocking on his heels as the elevator moved up another floor. "Most of the alleyways eventually end up at that connecting stretch running alongside the wall. The entire right hand side is businesses and their clever enough to block off the back lanes so's they don't get burgled."

"And if he'd gone left?" Flack asked raising a single thick eyebrow.

"If he'd gone left" Danny stated, pausing to step out onto the floor of the crime lab. "Then you and me would be having a different conversation"

Flack frowned, about to press the matter further when a familiar vision of beauty rounded the corner of the winding corridor. Crime scene investigator Stella Bonasera, though 42, she could easily pass for someone in her late 30's and look stunning doing so. As always professional in a smart red blouse and black sensible trousers, showing off the police badge clipped to her belt with confidence. Her slightly long face was balanced perfectly by the billowing curly brown hair framing it. Expertly applied makeup accented her high cheekbones and firm smile that quirked with amusement as she approached the pair.

"Thinking of leaving us to pursue a professional career in heavy weight wrestling?" She quipped approaching Danny, her moss green eyes sparkling at him from beneath long dark lashes.

"And deal with all that drama? No thanks" The blond CSI answered, not missing a beat. "Plus, those outfits? Not my kinda thing."

"There's also the fact that he's over _one hundred pounds_ below the cut off point" Flack emphasised the vastness of the number with his hands, placing a palm conspiratory on Stella's shoulder as the two in unspoken agreement walked off, leaving Danny standing by the elevators.

"Stop exaggerating Flack, it ain't that much" Danny argued, jogging a few steps to catch up with the pair.

"So how'd our little Danny pull it off then?" Stella ignored the blond detective, leaning closer to Flack effectively blocking Danny out of the conversation. "He trip him up, throw something at him…?"

"Get this" Flack replied pretending not to notice the disgruntled muttering of 'little?' coming from Stella's side. "He falls on the guys head – from on top of a wall. Knocks the poor sap clean out, boom."

"Hey now. There was no falling, period" Danny corrected, cutting ahead of them while moving backwards so they were forced to look at him.

"I jumped. Juuummmpppeeeddd" he sounded it out while glaring directly into Flack's blue eyes as if the taller detective were particularly dim. "There's a big difference. Although if you wanna stick to chasing suspects for miles an' getting nowhere that's your business. I don't have to loan out my services." He shrugged, raising his palms as he continued to shamble backwards in front of them.

"Danno" Flack chuckled breaking the jest. "If you ever feel the need to turn yourself into a flying projectile, I'm all for it. Anything that cuts down on legwork is a plus in my book, just a little heads up next time so I'm not left wondering what the heck just happened?"

"A'rite" Danny consented, backing up into a nearby layout room, his vaguely sulking expression instantly dissolved into a smirk.

Flack carried on, wanting to brief the head investigator of the crime lab, one Mac Taylor on the case before he left. He didn't envy his friend's job of combing through all the evidence collected from Mr Hart. The case was closing up, and although they hadn't managed to persuade a confession out of the suspect, he bet easy money that the photographs they'd taken of the man's bruised fists and imprints of his boots would match their victim's wounds perfectly. With the evidence collected already they had enough for a conviction, but hopefully what Danny found would add icing to the cake. Then there was just the mountain of paperwork involved to trawl through and they could pass it over to the district attorney to prosecute. 'Piece of cake' he mused inwardly knowing all too well that in a couple of hours the monotony of paperwork would have him contemplating lighting his desk on fire, files and all.

Five hours later and all was right with the world. Danny had called him to crow excitedly about confirming what they had both suspected, and even more. It had turned out to the benefit of the case that Owen Hart hadn't been too big on the whole spick and span where his boots were concerned, leaving blood evidence in the creases. It would take a little longer than they would have liked to get it back from DNA to confirm a match to their victim, but as the evidence already processed stood, they had more than enough to try, convict and throw away the key.

Flack sighed; the type of exhalation one can only make with just the right mix of frustration, relief and pure bone achingly painful exhaustion. He ran a limp hand over his expressive face as he stepped for the countless time that day off of the well worn elevator and onto the floor of the ground lab. Horrible flashbacks of paperwork dangled mockingly in front of him every time he closed his eyes; repetitive explanations and long drawn out answers danced jeeringly in black ink. Most of it was finished and his desk was somehow scorch free, which was certainly a bonus. Although he wasn't quite sure what kind of impression he had made on the new cop a couple of desks over by staring so fervently at the lighter he had spotted tucked in the man's shirt pocket.

At least he thought while marching purposely down the winding corridor, it hadn't been in the man's trouser pocket, that would have really gotten him some odd looks. Shaking the disturbing musing from his mind he rounded the corner, rapping lightly on the glass doors before poking his head into the room. Blue eyes as exhausted as his own looked up from the familiar rite of piled papers, the usually buzzing with energy Danny Messer looked like he'd gone ten rounds with another herculean suspect since Flack had seen the blonde last. Paperwork would do that to a man.

Flack brought a cupped palm to his mouth in the universal male gesture for drinks, the dark eyebrows raised almost inhumanly high to mark the mimed communication as a question.

The blonde criminalist considered for a moment, dragging a hand through a by now spiky and thoroughly messed up cropped head of hair. "Gimme five minutes" Danny stated finally, finishing up the sheet he was working on, blue eyes beginning to twinkle again as a slow tired smile spread across his face. Both of them had finished their shifts over an hour ago but the reminder that any paperwork not documented today would only add to a growing pile the next was a powerful persuader. Either that or they were both just workaholics.

"I'll go see if any of your adoring fans wanna spring for a pint or two" Flack remarked with a smirk, backing out of the room.

A dry chuckle followed him as he moved off in search of more lab rats. The detective's smart black shoes marching purposely along the thinly carpeted corridor as he glanced curiously through the various glass partitions that made up this section of the crime lab. In terms of the age of the building, the see through sections of the evidence examination rooms were a recent adaptation. Certainly very chic, but downright odd if you knew the rest of the building as well as he did.

The CSI building was kind of the Frankenstein version of real estate. Various improvements like the glass paned offices, state of the art equipment had been added like every other city funded building. Slowly and laboriously, getting funding for even upgrades sorely needed was like pulling teeth. The result being a few approved modern projects against the still very obvious ancient structure of the building. Flack was sure he wasn't the only one amused by the fact that he could walk through a corridor lined with rusty pipes and exposed brickwork into a DNA lab so filled with spotless, shining technology he felt the immediate reflex to shield his eyes from the brightness.

"Yo, Adam!" Flack called, finally seeing someone he knew.

Flustered, the previously absorbed man slouched in front of the computer monitor jumped almost completely out of his chair. With panicked blue eyes, much brighter than Danny's or Flacks own, he quickly spun around on the seat's revolving axis to assess the disturbance. Blood quickly rushed back to his blanched cheeks upon recognising the slightly older man, the resulting blush adding to his round boyish face, making him look even more like a child despite the closely trimmed beard lightly lining his jaw line.

"You alright there Ross?" The detective asked with a tilt of the head as he left the open doorway, entering further into the room. Adam Ross, a lab tech who when standing stood at a full height of 5'8", peeked up at him from underneath a complete head of wavy brown hair, unsuccessfully combed back from his eyes to attempt a neat appearance. Jumpy was a good adjective to describe the man, whose whole body seemed to permanently vibrate with nervous energy.

They had met through Danny, the blonde crime scene investigator taking the lab tech under his wing after he'd worked with him on countless cases. Though there were literally dozens of lab techs buzzing around on their shift alone, it was common knowledge among the CSI's that Adam was the favourite. Whether it was because his qualifications made him the jack of all trades within the lab, able to carry out almost every task with equal or more commonly superior adeptness than any other tech, or whether it stemmed from his obvious vulnerability and childish, slight puppy fat looks was uncertain.

Though, he could see what had drawn Danny to the young lab tech. They both had enough energy to make you dizzy just watching them and they both had roughly similar events in their lives that had caused such an outpouring of activity. Danny had grown up in a rough neighbourhood, a child navigating through a world of violence. To survive he had to be smart, and smart meant always on your toes, able to avoid blows, land them when he could and hightail it out of any situation at any time in case things went south, constantly vigilant. When excited, the energy manifested itself in amusing head bobs and rolling back on the balls of his feet, but when faced with a dangerous situation its true purpose was made clear. Too many times Flack had seen his friend pace uncontrollably in front of a loaded gun or intimidating thug, pushing weight from foot to foot when caught in a bad situation, an internal boxers dance that had likely saved his life and gotten him out of many a sticky predicament.

Adam's situation was simpler than that; he hadn't been given a way out. Though they hadn't pressed for details they knew enough trusted titbits coaxed from years of friendship to piece together that the man's father had been abusive. Though Danny's time on the streets was tough, he'd been able to develop tactics to escape and a place, his home to escape to. Adam's home was his war zone, giving him no escape. As a result Adam's energy buzzed constantly beneath the surface, tense muscles reacting to the least startling stimuli as if forever waiting for a blow to fall.

Flack hadn't been too impressed with the forever nervous man when Danny had started bringing him along to their hangouts. Disliking to admit it now, he'd had Adam pegged as a pity friend, too shy, glued to books and geek activates to get along comfortably with them. It had taken a long time, but the tech had eventually loosened up enough in their presence to get a better indicator of his personality and interests, which surprisingly had been closer to his own than he had thought. Both the darker haired men shared a keen obsession of roller hockey, while Danny had only a mild interest. Often times they would get carried away discussing the stats of various hockey players, before they noticed the blonde's eyes had long since glazed over and changed the topic to something more accessible.

To his credit, Adam nodded his head fervently in response to the question, despite visibly still recovering from the interruption. "Yea-yeah, fine. Just you know, focused on the screen" the brunette flattened his palms to his legs in an effort to stop them shaking.

"Did you need something?" he asked with a nervous grin, clearly keen on changing the subject.

Flack played along, knowing that it only made the tech all the more nervous to bring it up. "You got an idea of where everyone is?" he asked, lowering himself into a nearby chair.

The room was identical to almost every other lab room he had passed in overall structure, but the contents made it unique. Three monitors stood as one on top of the carefully shaped desk, two more computer desks exactly the same sitting unmanned facing the opposite corner of the see through 'wall' marking the edges of the audio visual room. Colourful sound waves danced their merry way across larger monitors dwarfing the small desks below for hard working techs to analyse different audio content. This was definitely one of the more high tech additions.

"Stella's out on a scene" the tech's blue eyes softened as he mentioned the half greek wild haired woman, she had along with Danny in their very different ways forged the strongest emotional connections with the young lab worker, earning his complete and total trust. "I think Mac's in his office, Danny's doing paperwork, and Lindsay and Hawkes got sent home already."

"That doesn't look much like work" Flack mused, staring pointedly at the computer screen Adam had been so fixed on, dark eyebrows raised and small smirk present.

"I'm off the clock" the brunette stammered nervously, "and its kind of work, in a way, in a very far off way, but still kind of-"

"Hey, I'm not here to bust yer chops buddy. Me an' Danny are finishing up for the night, wondering if you wanted to tag along. Get some drinks, a pizza, maybe catch the game. Come on, it'll be fun."

Finally Adam nodded his agreement, persuaded as many had been before him by the detective's charming smile. In the same moment the noise of familiar footsteps reached their ears and the pair looked up to watch as Danny Messer navigated the glass maze to reach the doorway of the transparent room they occupied. The reassuringly familiar charismatic smile in place as the once again bright eyed blonde locked gazes with both his friends.

"We goin'? Or you got your heart set on workaholic of the year award?" Danny asked, somehow managing to pull a straight face, though his eyes twinkled with mirth.

The bar was traditional looking without falling into the trap of being ill kempt. From the old wooden bars of days gone past, too many establishments had gotten desperate or greedy, wanting something new to pull in the customers. This ranged in design from half naked women dancing in oversized bird cages, to chic new bars made so completely out of modern materials like glass or metal that you were afraid to touch anything in case you left smudges on the pristine surfaces. Other bars had gone the opposite direction, abandoning the old style furniture to dust and wood worm in order to save a buck, not many of those lasted that long, unless they catered to the less concerned, less savoury crowd.

This bar however, a medium sized building close enough to the crime lab to be a favourite among the team, had gotten the balance just right. It had remained true to its roots, while still appealing to the modern crowd. Well preserved light mahogany lined the marble surface of the bar, tinted green by a row of overhead lights. Stepping away from the bar however transformed the atmosphere completely, into one illuminated by daylight like light above the pool tables, dart boards and various sized round tables, catering to those who just wanted a normal relaxed atmosphere to hang out with friends. A further few tables were tucked away in the opposite, more obscure end of the building for those who had something against being noticed.

Three males gathered around one of the several pool tables certainly didn't seem to have a problem with being noticed. The taller two, one by barely an inch and the other by several jeered teasingly as the smaller lined up a shot. The verbal prods were more at each other than the baby-faced man, as if sensing a certain sensitivity about the man and not willing to put his feelings on the line to test its limit.

"Comon Adam" Danny encouraged, leaning his weight forward against his pool cue "Couple more points an' Flack'll never be able to catch up."

CSI Danny Messer turned an endearing grin to the aforementioned black haired detective who was currently darkly boring a hole into the side of his head. Cautiously the blond raised both palms in a submissive gesture "Hey, you gotta back the winning team, right?"

"Right…" Flack drew out the word with narrowed eyes "an' the fact that your currently beating him has nothin' to do with it, right?"

The shorter man grinned his Cheshire cat smile, seemingly put into a permanent state of good mood after his recent bust. "You really think so little of me that I'd put my own good fortune above a friend's success, I'm hurt Flack" Danny stated, attempting with moderate success to dissolve the grin into one of pouting mock hurt. His blue eyes appearing suddenly bigger as he slumped his usually confidently held shoulders, creating an illusion of a pathetically small frame that shaved inches off his perceived height.

"First of all Mess, that little puppy dog routine don't work on me, I'm not a loony with a mothering complex. Second of all" he stated as his shorter friend kept up his act, jutting out his bottom lip like a petulant child "quit it before I hurt you".

Danny dropped the act, folding forward on his cue with laughter as Flack shook a fist in front of his face to accent his threat. He knew as most of their circle of friends did that the only reason the taller detective reacted so strongly against such manipulative routines was because it did work on him. A loony with a mothering complex he may not be, but unfortunately a hero complex could work in the same way. Flack headed like bee to honey for vulnerability, it was just instinct for him to want to save the damsel in distress, physical or metaphorical, to try and solve everyone's problems and protect any signs of weakness in others.

"Are you guys keeping score?" Adam asked after pocketing another two billiard balls, seeming much more relaxed now he was outside the work setting.

"Feeling ignored Adam?" Flack queried with a startlingly straight face, holding up the scrap of paper he'd been discreetly scribbling their scores on "I'm sure the corner shop down the street sells some pompoms if you need us to cheer you on?"

"No, no, that's fine" Adam chuckled, looking sideways at the still manically grinning Danny. "How much has he had to drink?"

"Not enough to make him tipsy" Flack frowned, joining the brunette in analysing their friend much like he'd seen the CSI's analyse a particularly peculiar sample under a microscope. "What's up with you chuckles? You take down a suspect and your suddenly a chipmunk on speed for the day?" he joked, it wasn't unusual for him to be excited or hyper, even to annoying lengths, though they usually only saw this amount of grinning rarely, only after a very good day. Apparently tackling a six foot eight inch tall, three hundred pound man qualified.

"What, I'm not allowed to be happy now?" Danny half heartedly pretended to grouse, snatching the score sheet away from Flack to scan through. "Wow Adam, you really had a roll with that one, these are some major scores."

"Yeah" Flack agreed as Danny stepped forward to line his cue up on the table, the youngest member's turn finally over "You might even say he's honing in on you" he mentioned casually as Adam snickered beside him.

The statement served rather effectively to distract the CSI, the difficult shot he had lined up missing by bare millimetres. A glance at the paper he had placed on the side of the billiard table proved it to be correct; Adam was catching up to his own score, and fast. Danny frowned as Flack moved past him to take his turn at the pool table, the taller man being the one this time to serve his friend a charming smile that managed to the blond at least to be just as annoying as his own grins were sometimes perceived, even without the clearly visible layer of mischief.

Danny felt a hand clap against his back and turned to lock eyes with the boyish faced lab tech. Trust showed strongly through the smile, only showing bare traces of nerves probably more caused by the surrounding crowd than his two friends. It was the kind of trust seen solely in animals and small children, seemingly blind to any possibility that his friend might choose a path against his own interests, damaging his body or mind in the process. Until you noticed the hesitancy that reappeared whenever any of his friends would show a new behaviour he wasn't sure how to react to, or the fear in his eyes whenever they lost their temper, even if it wasn't directed at him. It emphasised that the trust was blind because that was the only way he could trust them, by already considering and mentally denying any chance that they might intentionally hurt him, psychologically or otherwise. It also emphasised the fact that this blind trust was deceivingly fragile, were any of them to turn against him, exposing themselves as the monsters that lurked in his nightmares the damage would be so extreme it might never be repaired.

"Don't worry" Adam reassured him, his eyes shining with a jokiness that showed off his true personality, only seen by those who knew him well. "I'll try not to beat you too bad."

It was lucky that Danny wasn't a sore loser, as Adam didn't keep his word. Flack allowed himself his own smile as he watched the two bantering, the blond slipping an arm over his younger friend's shoulders as he pushed him for a rematch the next time they had time free, while simultaneously gently teasing the man's brilliant performance. Adam, now fully relaxed as they waited on the chilling pavement for his cab gave back almost as good as he got, his far more isolated and polite childhood than his two friends having dulled his tongue considerably but with Danny's careful tuition and encouragement he was learning.

Messer was a bad influence Flack mused as Adam said something that he was sure the usually polite man would have never uttered before they had met, Danny responding with a smile and a quick quip. The younger man's low tolerance for temperature being the current target; originally from Phoenix, Arizona, even the fairly warm early March nights were enough to set off shivers in Adam. Perhaps another motive as to why the blonde's arm hadn't left the lab tech's shoulders.

It never ceased to amaze the detective how calm people could be, how they could wander around as if they had not a care in the world on the very streets, sometimes the very spots their team had scraped up dead bodies from. How little girls could walk hand in hand, dressed up beyond their years, eager young faces and fake ID in hand to have a fun night on the town, not noticing the predatory eyes that followed their vulnerable frames. Or how tourists could ignore seemingly obvious warning signs and still wander happily into the bad neighbourhoods or ask for help from shadowy figures. It helped to have days like this, days where he could forget the death and ruined lives he would be picking up tomorrow and the morbid wondering of who it would be this time, which poor soul alive today would not be the next.

To him it seemed obvious that there would be that inevitability of death, particularly on dark nights such as these. Traffic slowed to a distant hum from the larger roads, with the occasional taxi or car driving by on the medium off branch road by which they waited, the cities version of chirping of crickets in the dull of night. There was something both disturbing and beautiful in the silence, illuminated by gaudy lights of various convenience stores and drinking venues, the bleeping, flashing lights of hurrying motorists and the slivering glint of the moon peering every now and then from behind rolling clouds to shine softly on the reflecting tarmac. To an out of Towner, pure vulgar eye and ear bleeding hell, but to a native New Yorker, as blissful as a mother's lullaby.

A waving hand in front of his nose startled him from his admiration of the subtle dangerous beauty of the night.

"I called a cab for you as well" Danny stated, patiently looking up at him with Adam still by his side.

Flack blinked a couple of times before he realised what his friend's pointed look was trying to say, "I'm drunk" he realised slowly, his swimming head agreeing with his diagnosis as he attempted to push his weight off from the wall he'd been leaning against. At least it answered the question as to why he'd practically been writing poetry about traffic lights a minute ago.

"You just can't handle your beer is all" Danny criticised, rocking back and forth jauntily on his heels. "Call of duties not till the afternoon so you should be good and sober for knocking on doors an' catching bad guys."

"Hey Messer" Flack retorted moving forward, tipsy or not to catch the blond by the scruff of his jacket, lightly shaking him from side to side like a mother canine with a disobedient pup. "I handle my beer just fine, not even a Russian bar dweller could compete with your iron liver."

Danny remained unfazed, smiling ever so innocently up at the detective despite the steel grip. "Adam" he said, turning to his watching friend "back me up on this one will ya? Flacks a light weight, right?" the blonde raised his eyebrows, ignoring the responding further physical abuse from the taller detective.

"I'm with Flack on this one Danny" Adam shook his head, short brown curls still moving after he had stopped. "The amount you put away you should be out of your mind, but you look even more sober than when you walked into the bar. It's not normal."

"Traitor" Danny mumbled, freeing himself from Flack's grip. "What can I say? Us Messer's were practically bottle fed the hard stuff from birth, it's in our blood."

"Literally" Flack added placing a hand on the blonde's shoulder, partly as a friendly gesture, partly to help steady the occasionally tilting ground. "You're not driving, right?"

"Naw, walking to the subway" Danny grinned, it was his usual route to and from work as an easy couple of stops took him practically to his front door. Having never really felt the impact of alcohol in the same way as friends, at least the ones not from his home neighbourhood, he was never really that sure how much he could be over the legal limit. Growing up, alcohol and drugs were frequent hideaways of youth living life in a war zone of gangs, the alcohol he had participated in, encouraged by his robust father who saw beer as an indicator of manhood. He wouldn't be surprised if he could feel and function perfectly fine yet still be over the limit enough to warrant a DUI and quite possibly the end to his career.

Nodding, Flack looked up as a taxi cab sailed down the road, another same for same yellow vehicle appearing fast behind it, approaching steadily from a distance. Apparently the New York taxi driver was keen to earn a new fare which was good fortune for them.

"Don't forget, roller hockey Saturday morning" Danny called out after the pair, after the three had said their quick goodbyes. It was an unnecessary reminder seeing as they would see each other at work before then but Flack had learnt over the years that it was a pet peeve of the smaller man to have people forget after making plans. The dark haired detective had only truly forgotten once, years ago after mistakenly taking a kip on the couch after an extraordinary long day, but although his friend immediately accepted his apology, he'd also fallen quite readily into the practice of checking, occasionally enough to wonder if it were some kind of nervous tick than a truly functional question.

"Something else you can beat him at" Flack stage whispered to Adam, purposely loud enough for the blond to hear.

"Not if I have 'im on my team!" Danny countered, approaching the pair where they stood by the waiting cab, the second vehicle pulling up behind it.

"Not a chance" the taller detective said firmly, "if we have to split across two teams again, he's on my side, you had him last time see."

"Guys, guys" Adam pushed himself between the squaring off detectives, holding both arms out to maintain distance between the two. "Really, this is all very touching, but there's plenty of me to go around."

The lab tech primped his casual jacket over band t-shirt attire, doing a good job of acting like he was preening under the attention, causing both men to laugh out loud. Flack slapped the brunette on the shoulder as he climbed into the nearest taxi, winding down the window to lock eyes with his blonde friend once more.

"Saturday" Flack repeated consolingly.

"Saturday" Danny nodded curtly, before patting Adam on the back as the man ducked into the nearby back seat of the second cab. "I'll see you tomorrow ya goofs."

And on that note their boy's night out ended, all retreating sluggishly with nice warm beds in mind and the wonderful escape of sleep.

Flack bolted upright from beneath the soft duvet he'd taken refuge under, remaining that way, rather like the stereotypical portrayal of a zombie in a morgue, until gravity slowly pulled the sheet from over his weary eyes. For too many minutes his mind wondered what on earth the annoying beeping sound vibrating within his ears was, but even before his mind twigged, his body was far ahead. Fingers already searching through the now piled blanket for the illusive pager.

He glared indignantly at the message on the small machine that had been hiding in the midst of the rumpled bed sheets as if it had just said something very offensive about his mother.

"See now, here's where we're not communicating well" he told the inanimate object firmly "Your supposed to send me on a call when I'm actually on call, and certainly not after a night out involving alcohol. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but after kicking back a couple after a long shift, bloody corpses and drunken idiots, not at the top of my to do list, or anywhere on the list to be perfectly honest."

The small black box shone mutely up at him indicating the number he had to call for details of the assignment. Usually and sensibly given the increasing modern age headquarters just contacted him straight on his new iphone, a machine he loved with all his heart since he bought it, but corporate sensibility didn't outweigh human behaviour, and his shiny mobile must have been dumped with his jacket in his living room.

Disappointingly the pager won the staring competition and Flack sighed, growling complaints under his breath as he swung his feet over the bed to look for some suitable clothes.

"A cab?" Stella Bonasera asked with a single elegant raised eyebrow beneath her many brown curls.

"Blame Messer and his bottomless pit of a stomach" Detective Flack replied irritated as the yellow vehicle sped away behind him.

To a born and bred New Yorker, there was nothing particularly fascinating about this section of the city. Residential houses covered the block, neither the cramped crime ridden apartments of the lower class nor the giant land hogging expanses of the upper classes. With clean red brick and respectable cloned lines of three or four bedroom houses, and larger apartment buildings further down the street this area was thoroughly middle class, lower middle class if one were to get technical.

"Its not often you beat me to the crime scene" the black haired detective realised suddenly as they fell in step together towards the yellow crime scene tape hanging dismally in the dim light of the morning, tied to the pavement edge around a lamp post and a mailbox. To the experienced detective it was clear they were just being thorough, encompassing the true crime scene, within the access path between two identical three bedroom houses. Killers always seemed to feel the need to hide their crime as such, whether through guilt or self preservation he couldn't say.

"I dragged Lindsay out of bed to help me with my missing persons case, we were just finishing up a block over when the call came in" Stella explained, sparing him a grateful smile as he held up the bright yellow tape for her to duck under, ever the gentleman, before following himself a second later. "Why? Are you worried I might make you look bad?"

Flack twitched a smile, pausing to clear his throat with a theatrical flair. "So Detective" he asked changing the subject "what have we got?"

The irony of their reversed roles, Detective Flack usually being the first on scene and so the first to fill in the others of the details of the crime wasn't lost on her. She waved off the impulse to joke with her friend, needing to focus on the seriousness of the situation at hand. The dead deserved her professionalism, so when she spoke again her voice retained only a mild twinge of her previous humour.

"You're not going to like this" she stated with raised brows as they walked in step down the narrow alley towards the dead body.

He frowned back at her, blue eyes twinkling with uncertainty as he tried to work out what on earth he would dislike so much about a cold dead corpse to make it unusual enough to mention. The cold night air stank of petrol, the sharp aroma of poorly sealed plastic rubbish bags littering the narrow walkway between buildings and the too familiar metallic twang of blood that stung on his tongue as he attempted to put form to the semi formed question. Decomposing carcasses always put a dampener on his day, but to his finely tuned detectives nose this kill seemed fresh. Judging from the surroundings and amount of swing-set filled yards he had passed during his taxi ride, during the daytime this neighbourhood would be swarming with curious children, making it likely that the body had been laying in the walkway hours rather than days.

Either that, or there were some tight mouthed traumatised tykes about to have very bad nightmares.

Flack was distracted from pondering what else it could be by the much too sunny smile of CSI Lindsay Monroe. Crouched on the edge of the alley, in front of a small gathering of dented metal bins that could have appeared abandoned there for years were it not for the crisp new black bin bags arranged in and around the slime gathering containers, her small torch remained fixed on a small pile of what the detective considered dirt, but his science orientated friends would no doubt have a more technical name for. Distracted from her evidenciary Easter egg hunt no doubt he hypothesised by his charming self, she attempted unsuccessfully to school a grin.

"Brace yourself Flack" she remarked as way of greeting, the corner of her lightly tinted lips twitching slightly upwards. If that didn't give her mood away, her eyes were talking enough for the rest of her. Deep brown orbs shone with mirth, before the crouched woman turned too quickly back to the evidence, likely in a attempt to keep her features straight. The detective would have liked to investigate, but Stella took the moment to place a hand on the taller man's elbow, effectively steering him forward around the mound of bins.

"Since when does bracing myself become an issue?" Don frowned down at the five foot eight inch tall Greek beauty by his side but was met with silence. "What's going on Stell?"

They left the southern crime scene investigator behind to play with her dirt, leaving Flack to wonder at the strange reaction. It was true that the two of them had struck up a rather odd relationship. The detective's tendency to take on a brotherly role with his friends providing an opportune target for the petite brunette to flex her practically based humour on. It turned out the unassuming woman had been a real childhood terror back home in Montana, something none of them had expected when they first laid eyes on her two years previously when she had joined their team.

The side affect of being the most easygoing, laidback and least easily offended target was the discovery that the six feet two inch detective and the five feet three inch CSI actually had a surprisingly similar sense of humour. As would be the case in a friendship based largely on jokes and the occasional laughingly concocted practical scheme however this did mean that sometimes just meeting each other's eyes was enough to set the other off sniggering in memory. Even occasionally in such a sombre environment, so how much humour was actually supposed to be behind that statement could be a mystery.

Still the doubt wasn't enough to alleviate a sense of foreboding that had descended upon Stella's first warning.

However he suddenly reminded himself, he had been in this business since fresh out of high school and in that roughly a dozen years of service had seen more sad stories, horrific corpses and just plain wrong than most on the police force. Not to sing his own praises, but there were times when he wondered whether there was anything anymore that could shock him. Live in this line of work in this dark city for long enough and you start to become hardened to the sickness of the world.

"Good god in heaven" Flack jerked to a stop as they finally circumvented enough rubbish to gain a view of the body. He felt distinctly nauseous as wide blue eyes took the bloody corpse with all the horror and revulsion of a small child mixing up a favourite Disney movie with his older brother's porn stash. Faintly he could feel Stella patting him on the back in what he supposed was a reassuring manner.

This was definitely enough to shock him.

"That's just plain wrong" the dark haired detective grimaced down at the corpse in a manner not even a bloated decomposing floater corpse had drawn from him.

A young male in his mid twenties, bleach blond hair haphazard but still bearing the marks of considerable effort to comb it tightly back from his once tanned now greying face. The victim, hidden from the mouth of the alley by the metal bins, one of which his upper body leaned against at an angle, sharing the weight of shoulders and head between the rusty container and the red brick wall. Glassy eyes stared upwards in wide horror, their colour clouded by the thick film that formed shortly after death, but experience had Flack pegging them as a light brown.

The rest of his body was sprawled ungracefully on the stone paved floor, one leg over the other as if he had been trying to work his way back to his feet before he died. From how the man was dressed he had definitely had a better night planned, one most likely that involved one or more of the clubs a few blocks down the street and didn't end in him being dead. A navy blue dress shirt crumbled under a brown leather jacket in disarray, part of a well toned abdomen peeking through where buttons had been unfastened. Black shoes shone in similar reflectiveness to the drenched ground on which the body lay, or the similarly coated trash bins.

Cause of death was obvious, gruesome and enough to beckon that peculiar freaked out tingling feeling that could only be described in terms of being covered from head to toe in crawling phantom spiders and needing in a fit of nausea to shake, scratch and tear them off in any way possible. Thick red blood lay dried where it had pooled on the floor of the concrete alley, staining the front of once white exposed boxer shorts like a macabre but effective version of clothes dye. Dark slacks slumped slightly above the corpses thighs, making Flack consider even in his shocked mindset whether when they'd been lowered the victim had in his mind a good time, or the killer had.

One thing was certain, seen partially but clearly enough through the lowered hem of the discoloured underwear, something very important was missing. Something Mister party going blondie had he by some miracle lived would have most definitely missed.

"Found it!" Came a triumphant cry from the other side of the pile of metal containers and rubbish.

Any hanging questions of 'what' were soon answered as Lindsay Monroe rushed towards them as fast as her evidence conscious feet and five foot three inch figure could carry her. All trace of her usual humour had vanished into professionalism with an added mixture of almost childlike pride at her discovery. The scientist however shone through most of all in the slight frown her face held as she held up the clear plastic baggie for both of them to see, mentally joining the dots along with the rest of them.

"One disembodied penis" she announced solemnly, failing to notice how every male in earshot automatically dropped a couple of shades in colour and twitched their hands protectively towards their groins.

"I think maybe rats tried to take it away" the light brunette continued her face a picture of contemplation "see its got teeth marks on it right here."

Flack suddenly felt distinctly nauseous.

"I think maybe it's best if we examine this bit of evidence down at the lab" Stella stepped forward diplomatically, placing a palm on the younger woman's shoulder in an effort to steer her and the evidence away. "Why don't you tag it and place it in the coroners van in case he needs it for the post".

The shorter investigator looked up at her colleague bewildered for a moment before her brown eyes drifted to Flack, and something finally seemed to click. It was not that she was overly dense in any way, when it concerned solving crimes she was incredibly bright, but when it came to feelings Lindsay didn't fit the female stereotype in the slightest. Whether it had something to do with growing up in the country with a close knit group of friends whose favourite idea of sport was to design home made weapons; slingshots, booby traps and the like to traumatise the declared enemy, the local boys, or perhaps when shortly before due to leave for college an unprompted bloody attack left her childhood friends dead and her the only one left standing was uncertain. Either way, it meant as well as not having the most adept shoulder to cry on it could take her a little longer than others to twig what exactly was upsetting someone.

"Sorry Flack" Lindsay tried, her nervous smile twitching with concern "I forgot you were a guy there for a minute."

The six foot two inch man's dark expression only seemed to fall more into gloom at the convoluted excuses as he stared unblinkingly down at his collegue. In return her brown eyes widened.

"Wait" she stalled, realising her mistake "I didn't mean. I mean, I meant. I'll just go put this in the van."

Stella resisted a slight snigger as she watched the young woman pick her way carefully through the crime scene, this time carefully hiding the offending object from sight. She turned back to her rather shell shocked friend, using a slight touch on his elbow to spin them both around towards the corpse, the centre piece of this rather appalling play. The greek raised both eyebrows, tilting her head slightly towards the younger detective to ask the question she already knew the answer to. Already he was pulling himself together, processing the facts and no doubt debating in his mind the most comical way to describe Lindsay's little stumble to the rest of the guys over a cold beer.

"Are you sure you can handle this one Flack?"

"Stella Bonasera, I am a professional" he replied in a monotone voice that didn't sound at all convincing. Though his blue eyes were still slightly dullened and his skin a shade paler than it should be, his professionalism showed clearly through how his eyes were already raking the scene for clues. By the time the coroner had gathered his kit a bare few minutes later and reached them and the body, Detective Flack was as good as new. Cool and professional, it was hard to think of any hardship the man could face that he couldn't brush off, like water down a duck's back, like blood dripping from a polished knife.

Months of spring were traditionally associated with new life; wobbling newly born deer, yelping blind coyote pups. In New York these upbeat wonders of nature were elusive, mere whispered myths of 'I heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from their drycleaner that witnessed one once along the Hudson river'. Upon entering the morgue, seeing the long wall spanning the dudgeon like room taken almost completely up by specially made metal drawers for dead bodies of humans to be stored in, the myth seemed even farther from reality.

Sunlight spread coolly throughout the giant stone room, kissing the large pillars that held up the long ago modified sub basement. Footsteps of passing body haulers and other resident staff echoed from wall to wall despite more modern fixtures, such as the glass divided subsections at one end of the long room, partly fitted to dullen the ambience and partially to allow family members privacy when identifying bodies. Despite the museum like sound effects and the timeworn feel of the aging stone the set up of the autopsy facilities was surprisingly efficient.

Several large metal autopsy tables were bolted to the easy to wash down floor, lined up along the long room, an equal distance between each one like ready soldiers waiting silently for orders. Their master, a peculiar coroner by the name of Sid Hammerback, stood with appropriate authority over a table near the middle of the morgue. With a beak-like nose, shallow set grey eyes and bony structure he looked like he had been born to do this type of work, not something that could be said about just anyone. Greying hair and a wiry frame put him in his late fifties with a look of such complete concentration as he stared down at the latest resident to grace the metal slab that to all but those who knew him well he appeared stern. Though perhaps, being a father himself some amount of sternness was felt at the idea of such a young man being the one this time to have gone under his knife.

Barely having placed the needle back on the metal tray at his side, just finished stitching up the boy's Y incision, the experienced coroner wasn't surprised to hear the resonations of familiar footsteps sounding throughout the stone cavern. If there were any word one to describe detectives it was persistent, and Stella Bonasera and Don Flack were certainly no exceptions to the rule.

He looked up, peering over black rimmed glasses at the serious seeming pair, before pulling gently at each side of the spectacles, causing the unusual eyewear to break in half along the nose piece, then slotting the two pieces absentmindly back together around his neck, to hang like an odd necklace. The coroner's undivided attention now on the younger pair, he raised a single greying eyebrow at their punctualness, usually the procedure for this kind of thing was that he paged them when he was done and they came down to hear his findings.

"Eager, are we?"

After several hours interviewing the occupants of the house that had discovered the body, as well as several neighbours who had flocked like moths to the bright lights of the crime scene and following up other dead end leads Detective Flack looked a tad more dishevelled than he had when turning up to the call in the early hours of the morning. Stella however looked terrible, like she felt every single hour of the double swift she had worked her way firmly into, not that either of the men dared to tell her that in so blunt a way. Lindsay, the five foot three inch petite woman that she was, was frightening enough with her right hook any man would kill for and a rugby tackle that could and had taken down men three times her own size, but Stella was really the woman of the team you never wanted to be on the bad side of. With a single glare, the older woman could make you feel more fear than any physical violence, though those stupid enough to test her had found out the hard way how adept she was at that as well.

"Come on Sid" Stella said good naturedly, "I'm nearing the end of a double shift here, so I just want to get something done before I have to call it a day."

Don chose this moment to stare with open horror at his partner, disbelieving that she could consider the past seven hours of canvassing, collecting and processing evidence as getting nothing done. Then again, having worked in this field for so long she was known for setting high expectations for herself, which of course she never failed to meet.

"I'll tell you this one, your guy here didn't have a very pleasant death. Died of exsanguination from his only bleeding wound." Sid unnecessarily pulled back the thin sheet covering the victim's waist, illustrating his words with the unpleasant visual of the raw looking wound. "Not the nicest way to go, personally I much prefer the idea of drifting off peacefully in my sleep, or perhaps carbon monoxide poisoning, I've been doing some reading and in high concentrations it's actually very painless, some might even say-"

"Whoa, whoa, doc" Stella held her arms towards him in a universal 'stop' gesture to halt the ramblings that those who knew the coroner well were used to. "Are you saying he has no other wounds, no defensive marks of any kind?"

"Yes, I thought that odd too" the grey haired man confirmed, moving to stand nearer the middle of the table "but what I found even more odd was this", Sid raised one of the victim's hands for them to get a better look at.

"Blood on his hands, probably in an effort to stop the bleeding but no defensive marks at all. I've also scraped under his finger nails but in my professional opinion I don't think you'll get anything. It doesn't appear like he fought back at all."

"So the guy knew his attacker" Stella pondered, joining the dots.

"Had to have more than known them to have his drawers around his knees" Flack jumped in with a quirk of the mouth, though he kept his eyes firmly averted from the still exposed wound.

"A date gone terribly wrong?" The greek woman questioned with a raised slender eyebrow.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" Sid quoted rather poetically while to Don's great relief replacing the cloth back over the corpse's private parts, or at least what was left.

"Did you get anything else from the body?" Stella asked, despite her tiredness, thirst for needed information ever clear in her green eyes.

"Well, I did get some fibres that were all over our vic's body that I sent up to trace. Stomach contents are on their way to tox, but I can tell you right now just from the smell your boy was drinking a lot before he died." The coroner moved back up to the prone man's face, pulling out a swap as he went.

"There's also this" Sid stated, demonstratedily wiping the pale lips of the corpse with a level of unfazed only gained through many years of experience, the swap came back a dark shade of pink. "Not your man's colour, it's definitely transfer, though it's smudged so I can't get a clear lip print from it. I've sent samples to trace, hopefully they can tell you more."

"Thanks Sid" Stella said wholeheartedly before grabbing the bags of the victim's clothes to take to trace. All three exchanged friendly nods and smiles before the two detectives went on their way, marching straight for the elevator that would take them up to the crime scene department.

"So when are you going to let Lindsay in on the fact that your over what happened this morning?" The greek brunette began as they made it through the roves of technicians and the doors to the lift finally shut behind them.

"Your never over being traumatised Stell" Don stated lightly, his face perfectly straight, but his eyes betraying it as the joke it was.

"You've got her wandering around thinking that she's hurt you, and you know how confused she gets in these kind of situations. And you putting that vacant look on your face whenever she's around isn't helping matters" she berated him firmly, shaking her head as he broke into a grin.

"I'll let her in on it eventually" the dark haired detective defended himself, "I just wanna get something out of it first, maybe string her along a little while, get a beer out of it maybe."

Stella frowned, arms of her smart blouse crossing over each other as she locked eyes with him, firm green to dancing blue. "Danny's been a bad influence on you" she finally decided.

"Hey now, I can be morally corrupt on my own thank you very much" once said he seemed to think this through, frowning at the ceiling in deep contemplation. "Actually scratch that, I blame Messer too."

"Speaking of, where is our friendly neighbourhood anvil?" She frowned at her watch as they stepped off the elevator onto the floor of the crime lab "I thought his shift was supposed to start at nine but I haven't seen him at all yet this morning"

Already Flack was pulling his beloved iphone from a jacket pocket as they walked a few steps up the hallway, casting cursory glances through the see through walls of the offices nearby. It was rare that Danny Messer was late, although there had been the occasional circumstance that the blond couldn't control, such as problems with the underground train system that he relied heavily on to travel to and from work. And once a number of months ago, a grief stricken mother had stolen the CSI's gun in an attempt to track down and kill the man responsible for her son's death, causing Danny to be late while he searched for her. Hopefully today the reason wouldn't be so dramatic, that is if the blond hadn't snuck into work within the twenty minutes since Stella had previously left the lab for the morgue.

"I'll call and check" Don shrugged, slowing to a stop in the hallway, "If you see him hiding somewhere around here, give me a holler, ok?"

"Will do" Stella replied with a smile, still glancing in the glass offices and layout rooms either side of the hallway as she made her way to find Lindsay to catch her up on the case and see if the petite country girl had gotten anywhere with the items Sid had already sent up for processing.

"Danno" the detective started with a smirk as the phone was picked up after the third ring, that background noise definitely didn't belong in the lab, cars passed close by enough to resonate through the small machine into his earpiece. "Your slacking pal, you were due in almost an hour ago. By some small miracle I don't think Mac has noticed yet, but you better hop to it if you want to forgo the 'I'm very disappointed in you' look."

A pause – nothing but occasional traffic noises and the sounds of someone breathing on the other end of the phone.

"Danny?" Flack tried again, momentarily pulling the phone from the side of his head to check the number, not that he could have gotten it wrong having selected it from his directory. Wearing the familiar goofy grin, the picture of his friend smiled cheekily out at him from the phone with the man's name emblazoned across the icon's jacket, marking it as the correct choice.

"Danny, are you there?"

Nothing but shallow breathing answered him back.


	3. Chapter 3

People say there are moments in your life that define who you are, that the actions you choose to take will determine your nature and lay down forever the essential qualities of what makes your core essence. However, for some in those moments the depths of these qualities are not so much revelations as a submission to an already known and at times grudgingly accepted fact. The only kind of revelation that followed was the discovery that once again despite constant wondering whether it was the correct path to take, that core nature prevailed and Donald Flack was left chasing an instinct that burned inside him, telling him this was the right choice to make.

His knuckles shone pale against the steering wheel as he made another hastily performed right turn, leaving a delightful chorus of car horns and swearing behind him, again he hoped he wasn't simply overreacting. The detective's jaw was clenched too tight to speak, but inside his mind there were enough obscenities to make a sailor cry.

Logically, Flack attempted to reason with himself again, there could be a great many explanations for why he hadn't been able to contact Danny. The most obvious one was that someone had stolen his phone; after all petty theft was the biggest category of crime according to the statistics. It would even double up nicely explaining away the constant background of breathing sounds on the other end of the phone line; what person hadn't been privy to the age old prank call at some time in their lives? And prank calling on a stolen phone, that was a past time that could keep children and stoned adults occupied for hours if not whole days.

It all fit perfectly, except for the fact that a search of Messer's apartment using the spare key he'd been given a long while ago had shown up squat, nada, the detective heavily ingrained in Flack could even buy into the suggestion that the CSI might not have made it back the previous night. Though, truth be told, it was sometimes difficult to determine whether it was the detective in him or the concerned friend that was causing his gut to twist so violently whenever he wondered where the blond might be. If he were playing the odds, then Danny would be wandering around the city, happy as can be, perhaps having stayed over a friend's house for the night and blissfully unaware of a lost phone and all the worry his absence was causing. But that particular scenario did not stand a chance in the turmoil of thoughts and possibilities swirling around his head, despite sincere attempts to maintain a clear head by cramming those more unlikely ideas to the back of his mind.

A very small part of him hoped that the reason behind his friend's absence was a serious one, serious enough at least to justify why he had just manipulated Adam into tracking the GPS signal in Messer's phone to give a location. It sent an acid stab of pure guilt through his heart every time he thought of that particular transgression. Adam Ross could be so very eager to please at times, that lying to him felt like convincing a child the bogyman would sneak into their room and eat them alive if they didn't give you all their candy. He hadn't even questioned the logic of using lab equipment to track down the blonde's phone, even when leaving out the slight fact that its owner was also MIA, but had practically glowed down the phone at the prospect of doing his friend a favour. Flack had decided it best to keep quiet his worries and investigation into Danny's disappearance, rolling his eyes at Stella as he mentioned leaving to drag his scrawny ass out of bed, and implying to the gullible lab tech he called friend that the favour was more a request of a bedridden, fever struck Danny than himself.

Now he only hoped he could track down their resident trouble magnet so they could get their stories set straight before the blond got himself untangled from whatever mess he had gotten himself in this time and wandered into work to explain his absence.

Flack cringed to himself as he glanced at the clock on the dashboard, two pm, at five hours tardy there was no chance in hell Mac Taylor, the boss at the crime lab hadn't noticed that one of his CSI's was a no show. The man was a no nonsense sort who could make you feel like a cowed five year old with a single sharp look, a enviable skill no doubt garnered from his time in the united states marine corps. Still, despite a formidable presence and high standards it didn't take away from the fact that the ex-marine had a heart, caring deeply for anyone they accepted into their close knit fold of a team.

The detective didn't need any of the skills and qualities his career imposed to know that if he were to disconnect the call with Danny, more than a few questioning and concerned messages from both Mac and the rest of the team would be lining up in his inbox and voice mail. It was somehow both incredibly comforting and intimidating that every member of their rather odd family, as strangely fixed together as the Frankenstein style lab building they worked in, could be so emotionally concerned about each other's well-being. Which was part of the reason, he contended that he could not tell the team his concerns until he was sure there was something to concern about. One word passing his lips theorising on worries of some possible scenario involving Danny being in danger and whole fleets would be called, absurd sums of man power spent and any and all things stomped on, chewed up and spit out to get back a member of their team safely.

Pulling the car firmly into a street disturbingly close to the bar they had hung out in the night before and sliding in close to the kerb to place the vehicle in park, the impulse driven man paused finally, long enough to reflect on the disparity his actions were showing compared with the careful, rational human being he usually considered himself to be. At least, until the small phone sitting innocently atop of the dashboard just to the left of steering wheel drew his gaze. Minutes after the line had connected with nothing but subtle breathing and background traffic grinding in his ear, he had decided as any vaguely savvy New Yorker would that it was nothing but a prank, some low life getting his rocks off with a stolen phone, not even threats had changed the volume of the quiet breathing. Until that is he had done the sensible thing, given up feeding the guy's ego and simply stated 'alright, I'm hanging up now', moving the machine from his ear to do just that, he had barely heard it, not quite a sob but the monotone breathing had broken up enough to suggest one wasn't far off. Don wasn't sure of the science behind it, whether it was possible to recognise someone from only the sound of their breathing, but whatever the cause he hadn't been able to bring himself to break the connection.

Gritting teeth together in an effort to stop questioning himself once again, the dark haired detective snatched the offending object before he could change his mind, using his other arm to slam the car's door shut as he stalked onto the street. Rubbing a hand over his angular face in such a world weary way as to look old well before his time, he set off in the rough direction Adam's GPS estimate had located Danny's phone at, both hoping and dreading to find his smart ass friend there as well. Heart sinking in his chest, it was only moments before he realised that he was walking the same path Danny would have had to have taken that night when walking to the subway.

He swallowed, blinking once long and slow before he finally raised the plastic to his ear. "Danny, I don't know if that's you or if you can hear me, but if you can I need to know where your at buddy."

Nothing but breathing and traffic, currently his two most hated and loved sounds.

Flack tried again, jaw clenched so tight the words barely made their way past his lips "Comon, help me out here, you know I'm shit at this analyzing crap. What do you think I hang around with you science geeks for?"

A smile twitched across his face for a millisecond as he thought of the indignant look that would appear on his friend's expression upon slipping such a comment into a normal conversation, then the detective remembered that this was no where near a normal conversation, it might not even be a conversation with a friend. Instinct was one thing, but realistically Flack had no idea who was really on the other end of that phone connection. Frustratingly, he also didn't know where exactly his friend was, or for that matter even where his friend's phone was. GPS tracking in cell phones was certainly high class technology but as with even the most professional software it had its limitations, namely around a fifty meter radius if they were lucky, and in this urban environment with countless warrens of buildings to disrupt the signal, lucky was not likely.

Assuming the blonde wasn't lingering on the edge of the city block Adam's global positioning system had pinpointed; a charming array of rather neglected buildings tucked out of the way of the usual new york foot traffic, and also assuming the software hadn't crapped out on them then it was likely that at least the phone if not the person behind it was somewhere within this block. Easier said than done, Flack considered again just turning back and coming clean to Mac, or at least Stella, they had technology back at the lab that could break down the background sounds on the phone call. Hell, if he asked them to Flack had no doubt in his mind they could give him the location down to a bare centimeter within a few hours, only there was no way the detective could wait that long.

Only the few very curious and long standing residents of New York city knew this block existed, and very few of those would even care. Though not far from the restaurant, the bustling city center and the subway this route was not one most sane people would take, unfortunately Danny Messer was not most people, and the sane part he'd been doubting for a while. Several rather questionably odered alleyways formed a confusing, but provided you had a good memory, quick pathway from the main brightly lit streets to this forgotten block. Then it was just a short march past the boarded windows, down another alleyway or two and promptly back into more populated lands to disappear down a subway opening.

Danny had millions of these shortcuts dotted around the city, and from his time on patrol and tagging after his friend, Flack knew them just as well, but unlike his foolhardy friend, he preferred his routes with decent lighting and surveillance. Just a funny little quirk he liked to call a basic survival instinct. Of course, the disturbing amount of times his preconceptions had been backed up by reality was enough to quench any pestering by Danny on the subject. In fact it was a running joke within the crime lab about how many times the blond had gotten mugged, a current total of nine; there was even an office pool going on how long before the number hit double figures. The headstrong man however remained unfazed and stuck to his little known shortcuts with all the joy of a small child exploring a maze, in fact the last time some poor guy had decided to use him as a target, the blond had chased him for six blocks then sat on the criminal to restrain him while waiting for a patrol car to turn up.

There was no doubt in his mind that Danny could handle himself when things got rough, that was practically what the man's whole childhood had been about, but that wasn't enough to halt the worry slowly gnawing away at his insides. While nowhere near the most dangerous parts of the city, the virtually abandoned nature of this tucked away block of forsaken residences and boarded up business ventures had been known to appeal to a drug dealer or two in his time. No better place to commit an illegal act than where no one would see it, and worst of all, Flack knew that Danny Messer took his obligation as a cop with extreme dedication. If the crime scene investigator had happened upon an illegal act, he would pursue with all the doggedness of an owner of a truly messed up sense of self preservation.

Frowning, Flack held the phone to his ear with the attentiveness of a avid sports fan following his favorite team on the radio and none of the enthusiasm. Distant cars echoed against his right ear drum, but not his left, the noises turned tinny though the machine's distortion as he made his way through the alleyway paved with sopping newspaper and other such rubbish adorning his path, red carpet style. The detective stepped carefully but quickly, scanning the beer cans at his feet and graffiti painted walls crumbling at his sides with all the concentration he had seen the CSI's muster at a crime scene, looking for that elusive clue they always seemed to manage to find that would tell them exactly what to do next.

The derelict buildings seemed to swallow him whole as he stepped deeper into the crisscrossing midst of back streets; some empty enough to imagine he was the first soul to set foot on their cracked surfaces for many years and some cluttered with enough broken bottles, spent needles and discarded cigarettes to easily imagine their holder's had just stepped elsewhere for a quick bathroom break. A curious film had already built up over his smartly polished black shoes, but the dark haired man kept on, attempting with only moderate success to trace his steps as close to the path he remembered from times he had allowed Danny to drag him through his favored shortcut, the subway route to the blond's apartment.

Bringing the phone to and away from his ear, Flack cocked his head slowly like a dog catching onto a trail of scent. Hesitating for a moment in front of the entrance of two equally unappealing paths; a distant sound to the right clinched the deal, and he sped off again with purposefulness towards the noise, in doing so stepping from a vaguely remembered route to one that he was sure he had never even come across in his lifetime spent in the city. Confidence fueled his speed as he turned again and again into unknown streets, at each turn comparing the sounds from the environment to those channeled through the earpiece and at each turn the noises grew more similar in composition and volume. He was getting closer.

Unfortunately, not everything being as simple in practice as in theory, as the similarities grew so did the difficulty detecting any differences when choosing between which path was the correct direction, until finally Flack was stuck, the trail seeming equally promising each direction. Frustration boiling within his chest, his feet moved almost uncontrollably, pacing this way and that between the two opposite offshoots that had suddenly sprung from the path he had been walking down, an unconscious imitation of the disorganized energy he associated so fiercely with his best friend.

Closing his eyes in heavy resignation he sighed, collecting himself mentally as best he could before he spoke into the mouthpiece "Danny, buddy. If you're there I need you to listen to me really carefully OK? Here's what I'm going to do, I'm gonna hang up now-"

Flack paused, swallowing, wondering if he had just imagined the change in breathing on the other side of the phone; quicker, almost panicked, scared. "I'm gonna hang up now and then I'm gonna phone right back. Now listen real careful, when I call back I'm going to need you to let the phone ring three times, just three times then you pick up alrite? If this doesn't work then we'll think of something else OK?"

Receiving no answer, though he hadn't expected one Flack repeated the instructions a final time before hanging up the connection, the picture of his friend's goofy grin disappeared from the screen.

Almost as an impulse, the detective struck redial, bringing back Danny's picture to the screen. The moment ringing hit his ear, he held the phone to his side, jogging part way down each alleyway to no avail, the only ringing came from the machine grasped tightly in his palm. Not about to give up that easily, he made his way back to the main path on the second ring, praying to whoever could hear him that this wasn't one of those phones that delayed their ringing any more than that, or worse, that Danny's phone was on silent and he would never hear it no matter how much it rang. Fear rushing like ice cold water through his veins, he upped his speed, almost sprinting down the path to listen at each turn off for the mobile phone.

Three rings ran out and suddenly a new worry gripped his heart; cold thoughts worming their way so deep into the muscle it seemed to freeze and spasm beneath his ribcage. Willingly he had severed his only connection with his missing friend, all doubts that the person on the other end of the phone was not Danny having vanished in the wake of the panic fueling his footsteps. Four rings and still nothing, how many rings did the standard mobile have before it went to voice mail, six, eight, less?

"Danny?" Flack yelled out to the crumbling brickwork surrounding him, receiving no sound in return but the distant hum of intermittent traffic. Five rings, he attempted to school his emotions, reminding himself that if this didn't work then there were other options; calling back, recruiting Mac Taylor to come down here, lab in tow and turn the place upside down and inside out until they found their friend. Not fifteen meters in front of him the path opened up into a street, busier than the last one but only so far as this one looked like it might actually serve as residence for some people, with cars parked on curbs and movement from one of the few curtains within his eye line, possibly in reaction to his shout. If Danny wasn't here then he was running out of places to look.

As soon as the sixth ring hit the air, he heard it, slight and distorted but definitely there. Right. Flack turned in the direction, his feet finding the turn-off before his eyes registered it as a tiny alleyway at back of a row of small residences barely large enough to hold both arms straight away from his sides without brushing brick. While it had been built as an in between passageway for the residents of the two or three houses to walk before dropping their rubbish in the larger path for pick up, the state of the concrete told the detective that somebody didn't agree. Bags, some split and some miraculously intact lay forgotten against the brick and on the wet ground by their corpses sat a figure slumped too far forward to see his features, but in his clenched fist lay a ringing phone.

Silently Flack hung up his own phone, shoving the small machine deep into a pocket as he etched a careful path towards the slouched man. Words died, suffocating painfully in his throat as he neared, displacing sodden newspapers and apple cores as he went. It was Danny and very rarely had he been so relieved and disheartened by a single fact in all his life.

Thin brick walls did an excellent job of obscuring the afternoon sunlight, flushing the two men with a dim half darkness not conductive to answering the blaring questions about the sitting man's condition twisting around in his taller companion's head. Flack crouched, instinctively wiping away the blond hair plastered to Danny's forehead, his usually sticking up hairstyle battered into submission by the last rain shower that still glittered on the ground by their feet and turned the smaller man's clothes into a saturated mess. Cowed it clung to his skin, joined in the idea by the t-shirt the detective recognized from the night before and the jeans that were steadily absorbing water from the puddle he was part lying in. Somewhere along the way of whatever had happened, Messer had lost a shoe, the sock left half way off his foot as if attempting to chase off after it. There had been a jacket too that Flack also counted as missing, a brown leather thing that was one of the man's favorites.

"Danno" Flack uttered softly, relief lifting his voice. Cupping a hand under his friend's chin, he tilted the smaller man's face into the bare traces of sunlight that made it this close to the walled ground, turning it this way and that with the attentiveness of a CSI himself, ignoring the tensing of the muscles beneath his hand. Screwing up his face at what he saw, Flack pondered the scratch tearing at the man's cheek, split lip, purplish skin around his left eye and the blotches forming around his jawline before turning his eyes to the rest of his body. The blonde's right arm was cut up, and though Flack was still cursing the lack of clear light, he could have sworn there were objects sticking out of it; bits of plastic maybe, or glass. Trailing his gaze down the detective really did swear when he saw the same could be said for Danny's hand which was partially curled up and hovering close to his chest in protection. Swallowing deeply he gingerly removed the phone still laid in Danny's other hand, feeling his gag reflex working upon hearing the clinking of glass against metal while doing so. Stashing the phone next to his own, Flack tried to derive some relief from the fact that the blonde's left arm was not as littered with cuts as his right, though the darkening blotches in their wake failed the attempt before it had properly started.

"Can you walk?" Flack muttered, wanting to get the man out of here and far away as soon as possible.

No reply, just like the phone call, only breathing answered his query but at least on the phone, the picture of his friend had smiled and looked Don straight in the eye. Danny had yet to fix his eyes anywhere, giving the blue a glazed over appearance.

"Danny, I need to know if you can get up so I can get you outta here, OK?"

This time Danny's eyes seemed to react, but only so far as to flitter away from his own searching gaze like flies from vinegar. With a sigh that seemed to resonate through every one of his aching muscles, Flack fixed a hand to the smaller figure's shoulder, squeezing softly as if fighting an urge to try shaking the man out of his silence. Dragging his other palm down his long face in an effort to wipe away every trace of the built up frustration, concern and even dull spiking anger, Flack took less than a second to reassess his priorities before tucking both hands under the blond's armpits and hauling his friend to his feet. Or rather, a more apt description would be hauling his friend to a vaguely vertical position then using a fair amount of effort to keep him there.

Danny's toes barely whispered against the ground as the detective turned, his movements full of purpose, as he slung his friend's less damaged arm across his neck and gripping it there to keep the man steady, while being careful to hold only the undamaged skin on his forearm and not the sickening glass filled palm. His second arm wrapped around the man's back and under his arm, hand resting on Danny's chest, clenching a handful of sodden t-shirt to keep him as still as possible as they moved quickly out into the street.

Curtains fluttered in their wake, but Don didn't stop to think about what a frightening picture they must make, him dragging a bloodied limp figure down the pavements where children would play when school got out and citizens walked calmly back to their homes. The whole situation felt strangely like the moments after a bomb explodes, where the world is stilled into silence and you look around expecting to see that everyday street you were walking down gone, turned into some completely different hellish dimension, because after all that noise and all that violence, how can it still be the same street? Yet, instead you recognize normality; that bench you sat on to drink coffee, the shop you walk past every morning, just normality shredded and butchered completely into abnormality. That was the part of him that squeaked skeptically in the back of his mind that this couldn't be happening, he had left Danny at the bar last night healthy and in good spirits to make the same walk he had made every day for the past five years to the subway and back home. There had to be some mistake.

It took much less time to take the long path around back to where Flack had parked his car than he could ever remember Danny's prized shortcuts taking, but he had a feeling that it was more to do with the detachment of the moment than distance, certainly Danny would fight with him on the matter. With that thought he spared a glance down at the slumped head lolling limply forwards and towards the blond's levered arm, the image of his stubborn headstrong friend arguing with him seeming so unlikely that it sent a physical pain hurtling through his chest.

Later he would be unable to describe exactly how he managed to keep a hold of Danny's weight and maneuver his car keys, but he managed it and soon the smaller man was placed in the passenger seat as he rushed around to his own side of the vehicle. The detective had started the engine, put the car into gear and yanked on a seat belt before he noticed Danny had yet to put on his own. The man looked more like a boy as he huddled, leaning against the door, shivers racking his frame as he held his hands protectively against the sodding wet t-shirt covering his chest, feet turned inwards tucked as close to the chair as humanly possible, pink visible as Flack processed the fact that the sock seemed to at some point have gone chasing off in search of the missing shoe. Instinct guided a comforting hand toward his friend's shoulder, though from the tense muscles under his palm it was not well received.

"You're gonna be fine Danno" the dark haired man said, finally finding his voice. It felt odd as he drew the man's seat belt across his chest, carefully guiding clenched hands out of the way before slotting the metal claw into its counterpart at the base of the vinyl. One of the first things you learned about Danny Messer was that he was independent, fiercely so. Even after all these years Flack had to practically bully him into admitting when he might be too ill to work, and even then getting a obstinate Danny when focused on a case to take any time off was running close to impossible.

As they drove off, Flack without any guilt on the issue slammed the emergency police light on top the dashboard, its whining noise blaring out the silence. Heavy on the horn and quick with the wheel the car jumped through traffic towards Bellevue hospital centre faster than should be possible, particularly in New York traffic. Finally gliding into the painted tarmac car park at the front of the hospital, Flack switched off the light, barely making an effort to park before he pulled out the keys and yanked open the vehicle door.

A quick glance at his surroundings and Flack decided against calling for help, to instead rush around the silver mercury sedan to take his friend to the doors of the building himself. From the looks of things it was a quiet afternoon for the large hospital, and because of the large distance between the car park and the hospital entrance due to the ambulance bay in between it was likely to take longer if he just waited around for someone to notice them. Besides the adrenaline that was still rushing through his system demanded that he take action, muscles practically moving by themselves as he opened the passenger door and tugged the blond's seat beat loose. Flack was just about to haul the smaller man back into his arms again when a weak grip on his long sleeved white shirt stopped him.

The voice was unexpected; so raw and raspy as if the man had been swallowing sandpaper, it was enough to halt any thoughts of removing the damaged hand and simply carrying on in their tracks.

"No, 'm fine" Danny shook his head from side to side as if attempting to clear up the haziness that clouded his blue eyes and for the first time Flack caught a glimpse of matted red in the back of the sitting man's drying hair.

"Danny if your fine I'm Kylie freaking Minogue, now common I'm not arguing with you while your bleeding all over the fucking car park"

Knowing from experience not to give the stubborn man any further chance to retaliate, Don heaved the smaller figure out of the car so Danny was forced to stand shaking against the metal bonnet, single shoe gripping uncertainly at the tarmac while his other bare foot shied away from the cold rough feel. With the foreign arm still firmly clamped around his chest, Danny instinctively leaned forward looking for something further to hold his weight, exploring the dipped lines marking the hood with forearms like a toddler taking first steps before Flack noticed the danger and pulled him away, cursing himself for falling into such mundane routines as locking the car door in a time like this. Bits of bloodied glass glittered by their feet cast there by the friction and the detective could not halt a few less than savoury phrases rumbling from lungs burning with tension to spill messily over the all but empty car park and his faltering friend's ears.

As though those words had cast a sudden spell, any stability in the blond's legs seemed to fade, head lolling back limply to Flack's shoulder. Though this was frightening enough Danny had never been one to do things with only half effort, so sure enough as soon as the dark haired man had gathered his senses to bring his friend to the floor, securely holding head and torso upright to his chest, shivers travelled like a constant electric shock along the man's body, the voltage seemingly slowly to rise as eyelids fluttered to join the muscles.

No further prompt was needed as Flack gathered the shaking man in his arms, bridal style, something he had held off till now due to unpleasant knowledge of just what Danny would do to him if he found out. Street smart men after all do not get carried around like women. In that moment however, nothing Danny could do to him seemed worse than the possibilities of what could happen if his friend did not get immediate medical assistance.

Even when the taller man ran, Danny's breathing still seemed at least twice as fast as his own, ribcage moving light and fast against his chest, more like the breathing of a small bird than a human. Don shook it off, focusing only on the middle aged woman in pink nursing uniform that had appeared from through the large automatic doors. She was yelling something over her shoulder, but Flack couldn't make out the words. The affect though he quickly appreciated as a gurney rolled into view pushed by a tall doctor with neat black choirboy hair cut and a smartly turned back white coat.

The world floated out of focus as Flack felt himself place his shaking cargo onto the waiting surface, his mind taking longer than his body to process the action. All that seemed salient were Danny's blue eyes at last fixed on his own lighter pair, panicked and yet at the same time somewhat dull. A grating moan erupted from the distressed man's throat as the trolley began to move, the neat doctor using curious fingers to explore the wounds along his right arm. Immediately and instinctively the detective followed, fighting for space to see as more doctors and nurses swarmed in from all sides like part thieves to a car parked in a bad neighbourhood. Forced to evaluate them for the first time since the dim alley way, the cuts looked worse, dried blood darkened like dirt around the lacerations with fresh red turning his forearm into some kind of grotesque attempt at stained glass art.

"I'm sorry sir, but you can't go any further"

The detective looked down at the petite blonde nurse, a little thing barely out of puberty with ringlets dancing around a chubby flushed face with an incongruous look on his face as if she'd suddenly started talking in a foreign language. Room spinning with activity, he attempted to take it all in; the ringing of phones, sharp tapping of shoes against gleaming tiled floors, doctors shouting garbled stats to each other, all the while with his friend getting progressively further and further away. Flack swallowed deeply, adams apple bobbing as the raw sound scratched through the lively atmosphere of the room from Danny's throat, a noise up till now he had thought only wounded animals could make.

"You don't understand, I can't leave him" he implored, hands turned bilingual in the language of anger and pleading. "Somethings really wrong and I don't know what it is."

Eyes fixed uncontrollably, like the strange impulse people got to stare at a bloody car wreak while driving by or gaze open mouthed at a crime scene Danny and his other friends were processing. Flack couldn't draw his eyes away from the sight of his friend reaching up a jagged hand to grip around the doctor's glove with body language that he could read all too well from a lifetime of experience seeing it on victims faces, 'stop, please stop'. Then they were gone, a nurse helping to prise off the bleeding palm as the gurney disappeared through large green double doors.

"He doesn't act like this" Flack reasoned, finally turning his attention down to the petite nurse, trying to make her understand, to make her see. "Somethings really wrong."

Sympathetic chocolate eyes studied his own, "I understand that sir, and I promise you that he is getting the very best help, but in order to be able to treat him as well as possible, I'm going to need some information from you." The golden ringlets bounced as the girl, not much taller than Lindsay gestured him calmly towards a nearby chair.

"Information?" he asked, realising just how drained he felt once his weight had been lowered into the offered seat. Blue eyes glanced between the stoic wooden doors that had swallowed his friend and the waiting room, or rather the hallway leading off from the waiting room, he hadn't even noticed that he'd travelled so far. The few patients he could still see stared around the corner at him like a particularly fascinating side show attraction, yet he found he could not bring himself to care.

"Well, what is his name for a start?" her lips curled upwards into an encouraging smile as she huddled next to him on a neighbouring chair.

"Danny" he said slowly, eyes still drawn towards the silent green doors, ears ringing with the raw sound of his friend's voice. "Danny Messer".

"Good" the girl praised reassuringly, placing a soft hand on his arm, causing the detective to look down and notice for the first time the small smudges of dark blood on the sleeves and breast of his white shirt where the dark jacket had failed to protect the material. "and can you tell me what happened to Mr Messer?"

Flack looked up, his face a picture of confusion as the fact hit him that really he had no idea what had happened to Danny. He had theories of course, his head was spinning with them. Muggings, bar fights, an attempt to get lab information, gang beatings. Some unlikely, but none far enough off the edge of reason to be deemed impossible. Inhaling a sharp breath at the revelation he shook his head.

"I don't know, I just found him all banged up like that. Danny can.." the detective's gaze drifted past the girl again, trying in vain to make out any shapes present through the small windows set into the green double doors. A cleaner stepped through the forbidden divide, duty quick in his step as he wheeled his bucket down past the chairs and down the hallway to whatever mess awaited him. Flack drank up the glimpses of a long empty hallway set with tiles identical to the ones his feet rested on now before the swinging doors stilled.

"Danny's a stubborn idiot who attracts trouble like a corpse attracts flies" Flack said firmly, seeing the angry bruises in his mind, feeling the limp weight of his friend in his arms and for a moment feeling so furious at his friend for getting himself in a mess yet again that he'd quite happily add a couple of bruises of his own. "But he's also real smart and has no problem taking care of himself. I don't know what happened, but whatever did worked him over pretty bad. He wasn't acting right or talking, and usually I can't get him to shut up. His head had blood on it like it'd been hit, he was uncoordinated and in the parking lot it was like – he had some kinda seizure or something, I don't know what it was but he went limp then he was shaking all over the place."

"It could be a number of things" the girl reassured him, gentle hand still on his sleeve and eyes wide with real concern. "but I'll make sure the doctors know about it."

After the girl left, taking her cheery bobbing ringlets and reassuring smile with her, the empty hallway became his sole form of comfort. He would look at the chipped yellow tiles under his black scuffed shoes and wonder if the room Messer was in had the same kind of floor. That kind of thought pattern was corny at best, but as the minutes dragged their slow path through the hospital it became a calming alternative to wondering what was taking so long. Were there complications? Had it really been a seizure in the parking lot? Had the head trauma caused some kind of brain damage? Anything to quiet the pestering questions was preferable to the madness he was feeling.

Vibrations quivered against his hip and he could not help but duck his head forward in shame as his fingers refused to answer the questioning phone. His previous guess about how many messages would have lined up in the machine once he disconnected the call to Danny hadn't been far off, and yet any thoughts of answering to perhaps quell growing fears of his whereabouts were cut short by one single fact. At this moment in time he had no calming words to say, only more fears and questions to add to the pile. It was oddly ironic given the fact that it had been his own fears for a friend's safety that had driven him to this moment.

Still, Flack promised himself, he would call Mac as soon as he had news. To contact his friends at this point when all he possessed were questions was cruel and liable to cause a panic. The last thing Danny would want was the knowledge that he had caused yet another panic, after being trapped in a reinforced panic room, several near misses of being charged with murder, being beaten up and taken hostage, going AWOL to stop a attempted murder, and who knew what else had slipped his mind that moment, it was best to hold off for a little longer before coming clean gracefully. Yes, the detective thought to himself with confidence, after Danny had recovered from whatever knock on the head had temporarily scrambled his brains he would be grateful to be given the chance to talk through which way exactly was the best to break the news that he'd once again gotten himself into a mess. The lowest impact explanation that would be least likely to end with Mac threatening him if he didn't take time off, Lindsay awkwardly attempting to express her sympathy after the two's turbulent past, Hawkes making use of his history in medicine to make a list of strict instructions that **had** to be followed and yes he admitted that it was more likely to himself than even Stella to be the one to make sure the blonde got something to eat and followed every one of Hawkes's orders to a tee.

Every time a doctor, nurse or even a maintenance worker passed his small chair in the hallway it added another crushing disappointment when they failed to stop and tell him what exactly was wrong with his friend. So by the time a face he recognised walked by, the overly smart doctor with a now slightly more ruffled attire Flack could not help but jump out of his seat fuelled by questions and doubts ever present despite telling himself that really after so many years of being friends with a trouble magnet like Danny he should be used to it. No matter the situation, and there were a lot of them, Danny always bounced back, grinning up at him while nursing a broken hand or tripping up a escaping suspect with a crutch prescribed for a badly twisted ankle.

"How is Danny? Is he alright?" The words tumbled out of the detective's mouth even before he'd crossed the small space between himself and the doctor, causing the startled man to blink up at him a few times, obviously caught off guard before managing to recover his bearings.

"You came in with Mr Messer didn't you?"

Flack ran a palm through his short cropped hair in an effort to calm himself before answering, the words tight and controlled with the very much conscious trial to keep all anger from his voice, "Yeah, I'm the one who brought him in. Is he alright?"

"Your friend is stable" Flack's whole body seemed to sag with relief as the words washed over him. There was no doubt about it, once Danny was discharged the little bastard would have hell to pay for having scared him like that. Currently he was not sure what was the adequate punishment for scaring the shit out of a friend, but he was sure he would have great fun figuring it out.

"He has a mild concussion that's going to be checked out with an MRI to be safe, but beyond that I can't tell you much as Mr Messer has been transferred to another doctor."

Thankfully a few puzzled blinks from Flack was all it took for the doctor to elaborate, sighing lightly as he switched the clipboard he was holding to the other hand, feet toeing back impatiently as if there was somewhere else he really had to be. "There's nothing to be worried about, Doctor Reynolds is an excellent physician and much better specialised to deal with your friend than I am."

"A specialist?" the detective's lips couldn't seem to quite close around the words, plans of revenge against Danny seeming to wither as the questions sprouted once more, all different kinds that nudged painfully against his chest, growing quickly up to claw at the back of his throat in an effort to escape.

But the doctor was gone, scurrying down the yellow tiled corridor while clutching the clipboard to his shirt, leaving only muttered apologies and a hasty assurance that Doctor Reynolds would be with him soon. Though in the busy environment of doctors and nurses scampering everywhere like the scent tracking dogs they sometimes used at some crime scenes he was not sure that the doctor's word stood for much. With worried blue eyes Flack watched as a teenager sped past his seat on a gurney, the boy crying notes of unchecked pain as the familiar sight of a swarm of staff swallowed his form to poke and prod and ask answered questions. The child's skater style get up and pimped out wheeled footwear leading the dark haired man to his own conclusions as to the source of the boy's pain as the group disappeared through the elusive double doors.

It was only after the team had left that Flack noticed one doctor remaining, making her way with purposeful step towards him. Upon noticing the name 'Reynolds' on her white coat he stood to meet her, an odd calm settling over him as he hoped that now he would really get some answers.

She smiled, the kind that caused her face to become too tight and made him think more of nervousness than happiness. Her white coat seemed more worn than the previous doctor, hanging at least one size too large for her relatively slim form. Along with her hastily tied back thick brown hair and what could at its nicest be described as neat black trainers for shoes, she exuded a much more casual persona than Mr OCD polished shoes and ironed coat. Flack wasn't sure as yet whether that was a bad thing or a good thing since she was now in charge of his best friend's care.

"Mr Flack right? I'm Doctor Reynolds, I've been treating your friend" the woman extended a hand to shake and Flack took it, years of trained politeness not failing him even in this stress worn time. His mother had raised him right and he'd rather no one think any different.

"Is he OK?" Flack formed the words, wondering how often already he'd asked the same question.

The woman's painted lips quirked upwards again in a faint resemblance of a smile, but her brown eyes darkened as she held his gaze. "I'm sorry to ask but you are a Mr Donald Flack, yes? Named as such on Mr Messer's hospital records as a emergency contact?"

Instead of speaking, Don simply nodded, removing his detective's identification for her to pour over before she looked up again seemingly satisfied.

"We'll know the full extent of Mr Messer's head injury after a MRI. His responses have improved, so I doubt we'll find anything to worry about but its best to be safe rather than sorry when when a patient comes in with possible seizure activity and such extreme disorientation." This time she didn't attempt to smile, merely stared up at him with a deeply concentrated appearance, brown eyes wide and lips pursed as if a sudden rather challenging thought had struck her.

"I must say" Doctor Reynolds phrased finally, one eyebrow raised slight above the other, "your friend Danny has got to be the most stubborn patient I have dealt with, and believe me that's saying something."

"Yeah" Don nodded, wondering what to think of the news, mind barely stuttering in its whrilling of facts, possibilities and just what the heck he was supposed to say to Mac about the episode. "Danny's got a head harder than concrete when it comes to getting him to take care of himself, sometimes he can take more than a little arm twisting to get him to do the right thing."

The doctor's whole body seemed to still as she looked up at him, brown eyes wide and he wondered just what he had said to warrant such a reaction. "You care very deeply about your friend, don't you Mr Flack?"

"Yes" Flack answered quickly, not having to think, though a part of him did wonder the reason for this line of questioning.

"And I imagine being a detective you see a lot of injustice in your job, a lot of people never punished for the terrible things they do?"

He froze but his mind didn't stop moving, the train of thought speeding dangerously as it searched out all the possible paths, twists and turns, looking for the right station that would tell him where she was going with this. "Yes" he answered again cautiously, yet from her searching eyes it seemed she was looking for a more elaborated answer so he added "its one of the most frustrating parts of the job."

Doctor Reynolds seemed satisfied, nodding to herself as she placed a palm on his arm, ushering the man along, but not to his confusion towards the elusive green double doors, but away from them, through a small white door that stood a few steps back down the corridor. The resulting room was small, made up of three chairs much like the one he had just been passing the time on, one separated from the other two with a blank computer monitor and keyboard on a desk beside it. Tiles were covered by a worn dark blue carpet that curled up at the edges, the sterile white walls of the hallway turned creamier and less stark. To the right of the room, tucked out of the way were a large set of scales and a shining metal table much like the kind he could remember being set on as a child when it came time for an examination by the doctor. God, he had hated the feel of the cold metal edges of the table biting into the backs of his knees almost as much as he had hated the freezing stethoscope pressed against the skin of his chest.

His apprehension and confusion peaked as the doctor shut the white door behind them, turning to face him with an expression startlingly similar to the one Danny had worn once after the blonde had borrowed Flack's car to run a quick errand and wound up in a nasty fender bender with a hurrying taxi cab, minus the nervous feet syndrome that seemed to hit the CSI whenever he was in a situation like that. Though that incident had ended happily with Danny paying the repair out of his pocket to save the insurance premiums, and Don had forgiven him eventually after chewing him out for denting his baby and not letting him near the drivers seat for almost a year. This incident was more questionable and the nervous look on Doctor Reynolds face was enough to make him swallow the lump forming in the back of his throat so it sat painfully at the pit of his stomach, after all, what right did a doctor have to be nervous? That was like a bomb technician being nervous, or worse running away from a building screaming. Doctors were just supposed to fix the problems, whatever they may be and never stop to be nervous about whether they could really do it or not.

"You understand that there is a strict patient doctor confidentiality that I must stick to?" She looked around as she spoke to him, her voice lowered, chocolate eyes dancing about the room before they fixed back onto his face, her jaw set in a solid line. One thing was certain, whatever information she was bound against telling him, it was something that could get her in a lot of trouble, which had to mean it must be very important.

Flack felt his heart skip, the words head trauma and specialist blaring into his mind even though he wasn't sure that they quite fitted with the situation. Still, what else could it be? The lump in his stomach seemed to grow heavier as the doctor shifted slightly in her black trainers, the movement reminding him painfully of Danny though the rest of the woman's body was still as her brown eyes still fixed on his own blue ones. She tucked a stray strand of brown hair into place as she seemed to consider how best to phrase whatever she was about to say, taking a deep breath as if she could inhale the courage she needed to continue.

"Doctor Reynolds, what's wrong with Danny? What aren't you telling me?"


	4. Chapter 4

"I can't disclose anything personal about a patient, but..." the woman stilled, her eyes not leaving his once and for some reason unknown to him a stray thought flittered through the detective's mind that if this were a different situation he might have found her attractive. Her brown eyes were wide but set in such a way that no one could mistake her for a push over with that steely determination burning into their skulls with one look. Though pressed tightly together in the nerves of the moment her lips were full and plump and long chocolate strands hung disheveled around her lightly freckled face in such a charming air of carelessness that if it weren't for her stare and firmly held shoulders she might have seemed younger than the late twenties she appeared to be.

But it wasn't a different situation and Flack hated her for the way her lips showed how nervous she was even if her eyes denied it, how disorganized she appeared compared to the previous doctor and how she could not answer his question in a straight forward fashion no matter how much he needed the answer.

"You should ask me about my line of work, I can tell you what I specialize in, what I do around here if you're prepared to hear it."

He narrowed his eyes, forcing himself to play ball. If this was the path he had to take to get the answers he needed then he would march it with unyielding doggedness. "What is it that you specialize in Doctor Reynolds?" Each word was slowly and deliberately carved into the air between them with none of the flippant roughness of times when he let his new york accent have free reign and cut up syllables while they rolled off his tongue.

"I am often brought in on cases" she held his gaze firmly, a slight flicker of doubt behind the irises being the only outward sign that she thought that maybe she shouldn't be telling him this. She was clearly a woman who once they had made a decision would go through with it no matter the consequences and that observation filled him with a certain dread as with such a headstrong personality, who knew what she had set her mind to say. "...that involve patients suspected of suffering from certain more personal assaults. Before becoming a doctor I was a SART nurse and no one around here seems able to forget that fact."

The doctor stopped talking, arms in her white coat a size too big for her crossed over her chest in a defensive pose as she eyed him, brown stare probing him to make his own conclusions.

He did, and immediately wished he hadn't. The words burned inside his skull so bright that he wished he had never learnt what it meant 'Sexual Assault Response Team'. His mind balked at the stop following her train of thought had led him to and he shook his head both mentally and literally as he examined the station. There was some kind of mistake because that kind of thing would never happen to Danny. The kind of thing she was hinting at, the kind of thing SART nurses did as a part of their job, that happened to victims, to young bawling children and terrified women, it didn't happen to people like Danny Messer.

"You've got it wrong" Flack tried to explain to her, shaking his head from side to side whilst his lips quirked up nervously as if wondering whether to chuckle at the misunderstanding. His mind searched for explanations to prove to her why her reasoning was so flawed, so desperately searching for something to scratch out the odd dry feeling that had settled in his throat that the first argument he pulled out might not have been the most articulate. "Danny's a guy, I mean, that kind of stuff doesn't happen to him. Sure he gets the crap beaten out of him all the damn time, sometimes he looks like hell for it and that's probably what your doctor friend saw, but Danny wouldn't - that wouldn't happen to him."

If Doctor Reynold's stare had been intimidating before, now it was enough to make the detective feel chided in a way he hadn't felt since he and his sister Sam had accidentally thrown a baseball through old Mrs Mcclutsy's window when he was ten. Man, that old woman could swing a cane with the best of them and he'd had the bruises to prove it. Although the longer the doctor stared at him, head tilted slightly back to look him firmly in the eyes, the more he wished he could be running down that street instead, screaming high pitched apologies as the rasping breaths behind him and sharp sting of wood against his backside showed how remarkably fast his elderly neighbor had been even for the ripe old age of eighty four.

"You know better" she said simply, arms still crossed over her chest as she fixed him in place with an achingly poignant mixture of disappointment and regret upon her freckled face.

Flack ducked his head forward, partly in acquiescence to the accepted fact and partly so he wouldn't have to look her in the eye. It was easier to keep her suspicions as outlandish and wrong when he wasn't looking her in the eye. As a detective, and a patrol officer before that he was well versed in the facts and the phrases you were supposed to know. In his best friend Danny's own words 'anyone can do anything to anybody' and for the most part it was true but although he had faith in the statistics, being on his side of the crime it was hard to keep in mind that 'anything' still happened even when 'anybody' never came forward to report that it had.

His head snapped up, anger swirling beneath blue eyes as he shook his head firmly to remove any doubts that had crawled their way in, any flicker of thought that stopped to consider even for a moment that anything that required mention of a SART nurse could have happened to someone he knew. It didn't work, after all it had already happened before. Flack remembered that time well, remembered sitting in a hospital chair just as uncomfortable as the one he'd just been camped out on in the hallway, telling Stella she needed to have a rape kit done as she listened, huddled under a thin blanket on the hospital bed, bruises and cuts making her cheek bones stand out even more prominently against her skull. Thankfully it had come back negative and he had let out a breath it seemed he had been holding for hours since they had found her beaten up and unconscious in her own apartment and leaned back against the nearest solid object in a deep bone aching relief.

Only that had been Stella, one of the most competent and at times the scariest woman he had met aside from Mrs Mcclutsy of course, but she was still a woman none the less. So though it had been difficult to swallow seeing her shaking and recovering from trauma so bad that she could not even remember whether or not she had been sexually assaulted, she looked enough like the other victims he had interviewed that he could push himself back into detective mode and tell himself that it happened, that with all the competent women he had met as victims he couldn't be selfish and try to fool himself into believing that it wasn't possible just because he knew her. Not like he was doing now.

Words seemed to scramble away as he grabbed for them. Tried to explain that while he knew things like that could happen to grown men it couldn't happen to Danny because the blond was his best friend and he had been brought up hanging out with mobsters for company, liked to chase down muggers for fun, jumped off walls and tackled men he had to practically strain his neck to just look in the eye, and because Flack had left him still happy and bouncing outside the bar last night and he would have never have left him if he knew something bad were going to happen.

"Yesterday, yesterday we chased down this guy almost seven feet tall and Danny was the one who took him down, he can handle himself. If someone came up to him wanting trouble, he'd sort them out or run, I've seen him do both" his mouth seemed to ramble ahead of his brain as he tried to argue, more against himself now as to why what she was suggesting had happened couldn't possibly have done so.

By the time she cut him off he felt like he had named all of Danny's best triumphs ever since the blond had hit the neighborhood bully over the head with a baseball bat aged four for attempting to set a cat on fire. Danny had grinned as he'd told him that, gripping a bat confidently in his hands, before swinging the smooth wood forward to meet the ball and send it rattling to the back of the batting cage in a single solid movement. Then he'd turned back to him while waiting for the machine to reload and added in a tone tickled with laughter that that had probably been the moment that his love of baseball had began while knocking the boy three times his own size out cold to save a damn cat.

There was no way something that personal and humiliating could happen to a man with that much energy and spunk.

"I'm sorry, I made a mistake"

And he held his breath, waited for her to continue and affirm his own stubborn beliefs, that there was no possibility that anyone had done something to Danny that he didn't know how to approach, let alone fix.

"I thought you were a good guy" the doctor fixed him with such a look of disappointment and regret that he felt it travel through him in cold waves that threatened to freeze his insides into ice with each passing. Flack wanted to retaliate to say that he was good and did love his friend but something stalled his tongue, a part of his brain that told himself that the conversation they were having was important, that if it were true the fact that even just dancing around the topic like she was could get her into trouble, so there had to be something deeper going on here. His unwillingness to consider her motives when it came to the welfare of a friend was not something he saw a good guy doing, so maybe she did have a point.

"Doing the job I did and the one I do now, I saw a lot of injustice and a lot of pain left buried and I thought..." her brown eyes shone sharp as her shoulders seemed to deflate somewhat, the tense stance of challenge turned to hesitant defeat. A stubborn kind of defeat that made her voice sting with acid disappointment, more at herself than him for making such a misjudgment. "I thought you were a good guy, that you would understand but I should have realized that being a police officer anything outside of your perfect definition of a victim you'd rather ignore or make into your next joke over the morning coffee than help."

The words fell out of Flack's mouth before he could stop to check them, blood beating hot in his veins "Danny is not a victim!"

It was the moment, the last straw and he knew that he had broken whatever will had pushed Doctor Reynolds into going out of her way to engage him in this conversation. She stared at him once more, eyes glinting hard as ice before tucking a wayward hair back in the direction of her loose ponytail and turning briskly to leave the room.

Energy seemed to seep from Flack's form into the floor at her retreat, and his whole body sagged, shoulders dropping, head feeling suddenly much too heavy for the neck it was perched on and his legs swayed unsteadily under an impossible weight as if it were only the doctor's retaliation that had infused his body with energy up to this point. Beneath his skin the blood flushed impulsively from searing hot to ice cold in seconds, and back again. Each thought froze and burned along with the rest of his body as he considered the situation for the first time, allowing the detective part of him to take over and forcing the friend part, screaming and kicking to the back of his head.

"Wait" Flack heard himself say, quickly and calmly as she curled her fingers around the small curved door handle. Although his voice sounded remarkably even and in control to his ears, the detective noticed for the first time that his heart hadn't slowed in its pace for the past five minutes, attempting to beat its way through his rib cage and into the small silent room where they both stood. "How sure are you?"

The doctor with a freckled face and stubborn eyes turned and smiled, the same grim smile she had shown him when they had first met minutes before, the one that was full of nerves and no happiness.

"I'm sure" she said simply and Flack felt a part of him, no matter how small believe her.

Entering that room twenty minutes later, the rest of him began to follow. The figure on the bed, sat with his back facing the door was at first difficult to identify without trailing his eyes upwards to the mop of dirty blond hair that had began to stick up again, recovered from the rain and roughly reaching for the sky. It took a moment to spot the source of the strangeness, it wasn't the thin speckled hospital gown that had replaced the soaked t-shirt from before, nor the alien bulge of gauze and tape that stuck out at odd intervals along the shoulder blades, appearing starkly out from between the edges of the tied back clothing before disappearing again from sight. It was the stillness and the painful tenseness of all the muscles he could see from this angle.

Reminding himself what he had promised the doctor Flack forced the hesitance from his step before walking further into the room, around the foot of the single bed to the opposite side where there stood two chairs waiting, one of them already occupied. The woman, a nurse from the pale pink of her scrubs looked up at him only once when he entered the room, then turned her attention back to her patient. Red hair frizzled around her chubby face as she smiled at the figure perched stiffly on the edge of the bed. Her fingers gently wrapped around the man's tense forearm, confining it to the tray stood between them whilst her other hand set to work cleaning the freshly stitched wounds that spread across both palms and traveled up Danny's right arm on and off to the man's elbow making him resemble some kind of desperately salvaged stuffed toy after spending a day with a knife happy psycho toddler.

Danny didn't look up at him, not even once the dark haired detective had taken the seat next to the hefty woman and sat, elbows on his knees to wait for the two to finish. The smaller man just sat, every muscle taut with tension and kept blue eyes fixed to the stitches on his arm, watching with a white face the woman's fingers as they touched his skin. Time or better lighting made the bruises appear more prominent against his body, most such as some across his arms and along his jaw were an angry swelling red, but a darker hue of purple had begun to tint the majority of the rest. Knowledge weighed heavy in his stomach as Flack remembered a case they had worked a while back, and how they had used the color of bruises to tell when the injuries had been made. From what he could remember it took several hours for a bruise to begin to turn purple which meant that while the detective had been sleeping his best friend had been beaten up, and he hoped that was all that had happened.

For his part, Don didn't make a move to open the floodgates of conversation either. He merely sat, patiently watching his friend with questions running through his mind that honestly he had never even considered at any stage in their friendship he might have to ask the man one day. Mac Taylor's stern voice joined in on the mental torture, Flack's stomach still churning from the grating edge of deep worry that had tarnished his friend's words in their short phone call. The detective had said very little to the head CSI, only that he and Danny were fine, the blonde was feeling under the weather but was being taken care of and a situation had come up. Flack didn't specify what that situation was, or that in fact it was related to Messer, and after an initial dodged question the older man didn't push. He had just told him to call back if he needed any help. That was what was so nice about having Detective Mac Taylor as a friend, he understood that sometimes you needed space but the minute you asked for any assistance he would be right there ready to offer a hand. And really in this situation, Flack would need it.

Don watched silently as the nurse deftly wrapped a length of gauze around the young man's palm, looping it loosely with expert fingers so as to allow for the highest degree of flexibility possible to be left in the joints. She taped it in place while leaning forward slightly to whisper what sounded like a order in the tense blonde's ear, though there was an undercurrent of soothing in the tone. Almost like the red headed nurse thought that Danny might break or lash out if exposed to any harsher syllables. In response Messer opened and closed the bandaged hand in front of her in such a practiced fashion that the dark haired man was not surprised to see that the blonde's left hand had already been covered in gauze in much the same way.

The nurse moved to clear away the equipment, piling unused gauze, tape, solution and scissors onto the tray before wheeling the now emptied stand to a corner of the small room. Never once did her soothing voice stop and for such a large woman her movements seemed to flow slowly with an air of calming grace. Clearly this was a woman who could work wonders on small children and frightened animals, and didn't seem to be doing such a bad job with Danny himself. Though the blond man still remained tense, his fingers only managing to grip the blankets lightly due to pain and padding but his toes, both sets now naked beneath waterlogged jeans shone white and glowed red with the effort to keep them as clenched as possible. Flack frowned at that, thinking it strange that they would remove all the man's other wet clothing but ignore the jeans then he swallowed, remembering what the doctor had said, or rather, not said.

The doctor hadn't been specific on the wording, had only frowned at him in that analytical way she had when he asked why she decided to tell him and said quietly that 'sometimes people need a push to do the right thing'. She'd stared at him with that annoying 'join the dots look' and though at that point he felt rather tired with the whole detective work the answer popped into his head quick enough that he knew that a part of him must have suspected it for a while. If there were any word to describe Danny it was stubborn, if it were true, and he wasn't saying that it was then right now Danny would be doing anything to get his way even if it went against his best interests. Flack knew just from the repulsion he felt himself about the idea that Danny would not allow himself to be a victim and only victims got rape kits. Which was why he had promised the doctor that the blonde would not get his way, even if he still didn't believe anything like that had happened the logical part of his brain reminded himself that the only way to know for sure would be a evidence kit, and he wouldn't be a good detective or a good friend if he didn't make sure.

With a promise to come back in a few minutes the red headed nurse gathered equipment from the tray and left the room, but not without first shooting Flack a look that without question read 'you dare upset him and I'll show you the reason why nurses aren't trusted with a scalpel'. There seemed to be a surprising amount of scary women in this hospital, or perhaps it was just new york in general.

"It hit double digits"

Don glanced away from the closed door to look with surprise at his friend. Though slightly better than before, hoarse still did not begin to describe the scratchiness of his tone but that was not the reason for his surprise. The detective wasn't sure whether it was the still fresh memory of Danny curled up in that alley refusing to make a sound or even look at him, or how convinced the doctor with a stubbornness to rival the blonde himself was in her version of what had happened last night but hearing him speak seemed suddenly out of character and odd.

"What?" he managed finally, his voice in that moment sounding a touch uneven itself. Ironic considering how much he had schooled himself before entering this room how now he could barely remember how he had planned to approach this, but Danny had always derived a peculiar pleasure from throwing him for a loop.

"Comon" the slightly increased height of the hospital bed put the shorter man at roughly eye level, perhaps even taller if he managed to sit up straight. Danny quirked a smile, but it looked twisted like he was fighting against a grimace instead, which could well be the case with the amount of painful bruising coloring his jaw bone. "Quit playing dumb Flack, who do you think won the pool?"

Flack blinked, remembering the office pool they had going, competing against each other to decide when was the next time that their friend would be attacked by a criminal for some cash. He swallowed. "So you were mugged?"

"Course" Danny answered looking at him strangely, the swelling beneath his left eye enough to make the gaze slightly uneven. "What else did you think would've happened?"

A part of him wanted to admit right there and then what the doctor had said, but the problem with that idea was that Flack knew his friend well. Danny would stare, ask if he were joking, then give a half amused chuckle at the idea and then deny the whole thing in such a convincing way that the detective would jump at the chance and believe him. And this would happen whether or not the doctor was right in her suspicions.

There was no doubt that Don knew his friend well which was why he found his eyes drawn to the smaller man's feet. Danny was always good with words, quick thinking with a silver tongue that had been known to weave a tale or two in his time but if you knew what to look for the man's active body language never failed to show what he was really thinking. The feet twitched and moved irritably over the small portion of tiled floor that they could reach, attempting to dance and pace even when their owner was sitting. His hands clutched and unclutched the covers, his head moved erratically even when he tried to stay facing Flack, and the grey blue eyes danced all over the room in such a nervous way that the dark haired man had seen only rarely during their years of friendship. Although he wasn't sure why, it was clear that Danny wasn't telling him everything.

"Danny, I looked through your belongings. Nothing was taken, you weren't mugged."

The feet stilled along with the rest of him and the blonde looked away before re-fixing his eyes on Flack's own bright blue pair with a harder glint to them this time, more suspicious. "I never said it was a successful mugging"

Flack steeled himself, changing his position in the thin chair to one more upright and firm. In return Danny hunched himself lower, looking through drying blond strands at him, the wrapped hands gripping harder, his feet began dancing again. They both knew each other too well.

"Here's whats going to happen" the darker haired man began ignoring the dancing feet and hard questioning stare. "First you're going upstairs to get your head scanned and check nothing too unusual is out of place, then you're coming back down here and the nurse is gonna collect a SOEC kit, and you are going it consent to it."

The response was immediate and loud, so much so that Flack cringed to think how much the overuse was shredding up the smaller man's already raw throat.

"You gotta be kidding me Flack! You seriously think...why would you think?" At length Danny managed some level of composure, enough at least to stop shouting. He attempted to square his shoulders, but they seemed unable to stay in any position other than a protective hunch for more than a few seconds. It was a far cry from the confident way the man usually held himself and somehow that terrified Flack.

"I wasn't sexually assaulted Flack" Danny said, the words confident enough to revive a few of the hopeful butterflies fluttering around in the detective's chest. Then he noticed that throughout this the blonde's feet hadn't once paused in their nervous dance, he was still hiding something from him. "You honestly think that's what happened?"

Or maybe Flack was reading into this too closely and seeing things that weren't there, it was possible that Danny was just wound up and nervous after a particularly bad attempted mugging. God he hoped so. Not that getting beaten up was a happy go lucky day in the park, but there was a reason he became a homicide detective instead of working in sex crimes. He'd known a couple of guys that he used to work with go that route and god even just working near that stuff seemed to grab hold of your soul and shred it into dripping pieces. It was the helplessness that did it, the knowledge that you could solve the case, offer all the comfort in the world but you still couldn't fix them and you couldn't change what had happened. Sometimes it was easier with corpses, more clear cut, you only had to solve the case, there was no live sobbing victim to factor in as well.

"I don't know what happened Danny" the detective stated evenly, staring straight into his friend's steel gaze, a look reminiscent of a cornered wild animal. "That's why your going to consent to the exam."

Danny shook his head, grinning with lips curled back into a silent snarl. "You don't fucking believe me" he stated simply still shaking his head in jerking movements, feet shuddering along to the same beat. "I don't know what crap those doctors have been filling your head with, but your supposed to believe me not them. As my friend your supposed to fucking believe me."

"As your friend I need to make sure" Flack retaliated looking over the hunched man with a critical eye. This conversation wasn't going anywhere, they were just butting heads like they usually did just with a much more difficult subject matter this time which would make budging Danny on the matter that much more complicated. The detective forced himself to rethink, to approach this from a different angle. So far although he had eventually reluctantly accepted it as a distant possibility that had to be ruled out he hadn't yet considered how he should address this if it had actually happened, if someone had actually sexually assaulted his best friend. He swallowed, mouth suddenly feeling as dry and uncomfortable as Danny's sounded.

"Look, Danno if this does turn into a case" Flack's voice sounded hollow and dull to his own ears. He leaned forward in the chair to reduce the amount of space between them and tried to summon up the actions 'comforting and reassuring' just like when dealing with witnesses and victims on the job, his hands almost shaking when he realized that he couldn't remember quite how he managed all those other times. "and there is anything that you don't want people in the lab or in the station to know about it and about you, then I can talk to Mac. We can make sure that only him and me know the evidence and case are connected to you, that no one else knows. That's your choice but either way you play this I'm not letting you leave this hospital until a SOEC kit has been collected."

Silence reigned for a few minutes, though it felt much longer to the two occupants of the small room, both men sizing each other up to determine who would win the argument. Usually in the company of the blonde silence would be a welcome vacation from the constant stream of chatter and laughter that filled Flack's ears whenever in his best friend's company, but after Danny's almost catatonic nature in that alley and afterward silence was the last thing he wanted to hear right now.

"No" Danny said suddenly shaking his head from side to side in such a abrupt fashion that it gave the taller man a headache just watching him. "You can't tell Mac about this Flack. Nothing fucking happened but you can't tell Mac, he'll think..."

Apparently the CSI didn't know what his boss would think because his sentence trailed off there. Something of the alleyway seemed to be creeping steadily back into the smaller man, turning his body language from animated, engaging and tense to just tense. Eye contact had all but vanished within minutes and a far away distant gaze descended slowly over his blue pupils giving them a glazed look that only seemed to grow more prominent as the conversation progressed.

"Danny" Flack took a breath, "Mac has to know, he's the head of CSI, he has to sign off on all the cases-"

"No Flack! You're not gonna tell him." the blonde kept his eyes fixed on the small patch of floor still visible between them, though his voice still had force behind the tone as it closed around the words despite a painfully audible rasp. "There's not gonna be a case cause nothin' fuckin' happened!"

Flack tilted his head, looking down at the hunched man on the hospital bed. "Ok, Danny" he said slowly, mind working fast as he took in all the bandaged injuries, forming bruises and wondered not for the first time whether there were any more injuries under the soaked through pair of jeans. A man had done this, had cut up his friend's hands, hit at him enough to mar his face and body with red swelling bruises and no matter what he had to do, Detective Flack was going to document each and everyone of his friend's injures and make sure that whoever had done this was held accountable.

He reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out the shining iphone, not missing the bitterness he now felt toward his once beloved machine for whatever small part it had played in the past ten hours. "If you can't help me with what I gotta do to make this a case then I guess I'm gonna have to call Mac for some advice".

It was a cheap move but Danny's eyes instantly widened at the suggestion, establishing eye contact again in the shock of the situation. "Flack, nothin' happened" the blonde repeated with a note of desperation, sounding almost as if what the taller man held was a bomb instead of a mobile phone.

"Consent to the exam and then I'll try and pull some strings and see how long I can keep the details from Mac" Flack said quietly, though in truth he wasn't sure how he was supposed to keep anything from that man, particularly something being investigated under his own roof, but if it meant knowing for sure whether he or the doctor was right about what had happened last night he would try.

Danny shook his head, his body coiled so tight with tension that it almost seemed a surprise that no bones were heard to break under the pressure.

Flack dialed the number, holding it to his ear when it was answered on the third ring. "Listen Mac" he said clearly, making sure to lean so far forward toward the smaller man currently giving him a death glare, that their faces almost touched. Don stared right back, letting him know that he was serious. "A situation has come up and I need to ask you something."

"Ok" the word was quiet, so quiet that even from his close proximity Flack barely heard it, but he saw the nodding, or rather a defeated slumping and raising of that blonde head that soon joined the repetitive beat of his feet almost like he was sobbing. If Flack didn't know his friend any better he would swear that there were tears pricking in the corners of those slightly glazed blue eyes. "Ok".

"Mac, I need to ask you a favor".

By the time the door to the small private room was opened again Flack's heart felt it might burst from the tension of it all. His feet were sore from pacing, and his steadily scuffing usually smart black shoes would need an extra application of polish after a good clean to get rid of god only knows what kind of slime and dirt had been picked up from those alleyways. But with the questions tumbling around inside his head staying still felt like being inside a roller coaster and it was the blonde rather than him who really liked those things, though he disliked to admit it Flack tended to get nauseous. Or maybe like Danny had suggested he only used that as a cover story to hide a more embarrassing truth with a less embarrassing one and really those kind of rides scared him shitless because he was a wimp.

"He's stopped co operating" the head of Doctor Reynolds informed him from around the simple white door frame.

It wasn't a surprise, given the quiet way he'd signed the consent form after having his head scanned, Flack had been waiting expectantly for stubbornness to rise its ugly head and the blonde to try another way to get out of this. Yet he found himself irritated, perhaps even a little angry. All he wanted right now was for the exam to be over with so he could rush the evidence to the lab, they could then tell him it was negative and then he would have to do some apologizing, or not depending on how stubborn he was feeling himself. It would take a couple of weeks for Danny to stop sulking about what Flack had put him through but eventually the blonde would understand that he had only been working in his best interests, although the chances that he would acknowledge that fact verbally were slim to none. Then in time everything would be back to normal and once the feelings had faded it would become nothing more than another event they both ribbed each other about over a pint of beer.

Danny was sat on the edge of the bed like before, and like before the tenseness of his body was enough to imagine disturbingly clearly bones breaking under the strain of the clenched muscles. His eyes were glued downward toward his clenched feet hanging off the edge of the mattress like a child who knew that they were about to get into trouble.

"Everything's done apart from the mouth and...other swabs."

She didn't have to explain what the 'other' swabs were, Don knew well enough and he couldn't blame Danny too much for baulking about them, it would creep the detective out a bit too.

The doctor removed a sterile swab from the pack and Flack fought against a shiver when he realized that most of the evidence containers in the kit were already full, there was even a small silver camera that looked like it had been used already. He had to remind himself pointedly that you could fill the whole forensic lab with evidence and that still didn't mean that any of it would come back positive.

"Comon Danny" Flack said helpfully shaking the man's shoulder when the blonde failed to respond to the doctor's prompts. "Open that yap of yours so doc here can take a swab and we can finish this test and go on our merry way."

The blonde remained tense, head down and jaw clenched shut stubbornly. It confused Flack to no end, not that Danny tended to make much sense but why would he chose now in the test to dig his heels in. It was only a mouth swab, the CSI had taken and given dozens of them, sometimes for practice and sometimes for fun. "Start cooperating Danny, or Mac is my next phone call."

"I wanna go home" the words were ragged and strained, but there was a level of distortion to it that couldn't have been caused by the damage alone. Instinctively Flack dropped to a crouch in time to catch sight of shining blue eyes before the blonde turned away to scrub at his face with rough white bandages to hide how near tears he was. Danny pointedly avoided the taller man's stare. "Can't I just go home, please Flack."

Flack openly stared, one hand still lightly gripping his friend's shoulder. He could count the number of times Danny had said 'please' to him and actually meant it on one hand, and none of those times had ever contained that amount of pleading and desperation. The dark haired man straightened up a little to try and capture his friend's gaze, hand edging to the back of Danny's neck in a soothing motion. Danny tensed as if already knowing the answer.

"It'll be quick, I promise."

"Thirty seconds" Doctor Reynold's helpfully supplied, moving some instruments closer on a wheeled tray as if to make sure she would be equipped enough to not go over that time period. There were disposable gloves, a small torch, tweezers, spare sterile swabs and evidence containers.

"Thirty seconds" the detective repeated with a reassuring smile, he dropped a hand to wrap self consciously around Danny's figiting gauze wrapped fingers. They usually didn't do this kind of thing, they hugged, patted each other on the back, draped arms over shoulders but holding hands was still for most times too feminine for grown men to be seen doing and he didn't want Messer getting anymore uncomfortable than he already was. The blonde though barely seemed to notice apart from finding it easier to raise his head without the presence on the back of his neck.

"Com'n Mess, be over before you know it"

Danny didn't look at either of them, didn't look at anything really, not that there was much in this little room particularly eye catching. Just a bed, a window with drapes closed, plain creamy walls, cheap curling blue carpet and small white doors leading to an adjoining bathroom and the hallway. The doctor had chosen it for its privacy and relative isolation more than anything else, something Flack was both grateful for and despised because he knew the only reason she thought it needed was her stubborn clinging to her version of what had happened to his friend. The only reason why the detective had acceded to the necessity of a SOEC kit was because as Danny, a good scientist knew in order to say something had happened or not happened you first had to test it. While the doctor was treating this only as a confirmation of something that she already 'knew'. It was irritating to say the least.

When the blonde finally opened his bruised jaw he would have immediately snapped it shut were it not for Don starting to count soothingly down from thirty, marking clear in the air between them how much time he had left. At twenty-five Danny's blue eyes shut, as if the small white swab were particularly painful and all his muscles went rigid including his hand over Flack's own. On reaching twenty and the swabs done, Doctor Reynold's tipped his chin up slightly and requested with compassion to his uneasy state that he open his mouth wider so she could examine it properly with her torch. Flack had to help and threaten to stop counting until he complied, it was about then that the detective noticed the smaller man was shaking despite clear effort to stay as still as possible and if he looked close enough it looked as if there were traces of tears clinging to the man's closed lashes.

Flack couldn't understand it. With a firm grip around his friend's hand the detective tried to think of an explanation for the sudden change. Why on earth would something as mundane as a mouth swabbing be the thing to set him off? A stray thought struck him, a thought that linked together seamlessly Doctor Reyold's suspicions, the reaction to being forced to open his mouth and the bruising around his jaw but Flack pushed it away immediately, mind too appalled to even consider that. There were other possibilities much more likely, although the scan had shown no bruising or damage to his brain or skull there was more than enough superficial damage to cause a nasty headache for a while. No one liked to be forced to do anything while they were in pain.

They finished ten seconds before their deadline after the brunette doctor had thoroughly examined the man's throat and used the tweezers to pull something small from between the blond's teeth. Don had leaned forward slightly at that moment and forced a laugh, joking with his friend that he was being given the five star treatment having his teeth flossed as well. It may not have been the right thing to say at that moment but more than anything else Flack just wanted to hear Danny laugh again, and chase away the doubts that had begun to edge their way firmly into his brain once more. Danny didn't laugh, didn't speak and when told by the doctor he could close his mouth the blond shut it so firmly both witnesses felt sympathy pains shoot through their own jaws. There was no sign that the CSI planned on opening his eyes again.

"Mr Messer...Danny. I'm going to need you to lie down on your side on the bed." The doctor placed a palm on the perched man's shoulder to help but was met with resistance, Danny having frozen into place. Fingers gripped about the white sheets and the taller man's hand, though Flack wasn't convinced Danny was aware of that fact. His eyes still closed faced downwards and each limb seemed stuck between staying still and his body straining to curl in on itself.

Like any good friend Flack stepped in, though at this point he wished he didn't have to. "Com'n Dan" he murmured, using a large hand on each shoulder to tip the man up onto his left side. To his surprise, the resistance vanished under his touch and it was with a heavy heart that Don realized that Danny trusted him enough to allow himself to be guided down to the mattress. What came next would be worse and suddenly with whatever had come over the smaller man to make him so withdrawn Don hated the idea of being the only one who the blonde trusted enough to push him into going through with this.

In between the start of the examination and Flack entering the room the waterlogged jeans had been removed. All the clothing Danny was now left with was the hospital gown, thankfully one of a sensible enough length to reach the man's knees but still nowhere near comforting enough in this position. It took both of them to convince Danny to bring a knee up to his chest, the doctor's verbal prompts and the detective's physical ones. Wherever Danny was right now, words didn't seem able to reach him but more than anything all the occupants of the room just wanted this over so he would stop acting like this. The smaller man, now in a kind of fetal position on the bed, still hadn't opened his eyes.

Don watched dazed as the doctor draped a thick blue blanket over his friend's stomach, waist and legs before turning to gather her tools on opposite side of the bed. He was supposed to be a detective and often prided himself on excellent analytical skills but in this situation he was as confused as a rookie fresh out of the academy. As much as he held onto the other ideas, a headache or sulking none of them stood up to scrutiny. There was only one explanation that seemed to fit perfectly with the man's sudden intense change in mood and it was something that he didn't want to believe could be true.

"Danno" Flack stated softly, pulling up a cushioned visitor chair to sit hesitantly by the man's head. "You want me to leave, just tell me to fuck off and I'll go straight out that door again to wait. Ok?"

Danny didn't open his eyes and he didn't react when Flack cautiously wrapped his fingers around the bandaged palm again. It wasn't even like the alleyway – that had been more of an apathy on the blonde's part, this was more like a deliberate avoidance. The detective couldn't decide which was worse.

Doctor Reynolds looked at him over the motionless body on the bed. "I need to know he's aware of what I'm about to do."

Flack fought back a groan, he'd been afraid of this. He didn't want to be the one to explain to his scared friend that yes, they really did need to poke around south of his border to check if something even worse had or had not happened, and no amount of begging or pleading would get him out of it. What if he really had been – no, Flack shook his head, he couldn't think like that. He wouldn't make it through this if he thought like that.

"Danny, its time buddy. Last thing then it's over." Flack used his spare hand to stroke a short rough patch through the now dry hair, something he reserved only for when the smaller man was sick or upset. No response, eyes remaining as tightly shut as before. "Com'n Dan I need you to open your eyes and tell me you understand whats gonna happen."

When the blue slits showed themselves it seemed to cost the man a great deal in energy. Danny did nothing more but stare with a odd defeated expression at Flack's hand in his own, or perhaps through that to the seated detective's shirt or even through that to something from a different time or place. It was a while before he spoke and Flack wondered if all he were going to do was lie there on his side on the bed doing nothing more than taking slightly too fast breathes and staring into space.

"We have to do this?" It was either a question or a statement, Flack doubted the blonde himself even knew which one.

"Yeah buddy, we have to do this."

"I can't just go home?" Danny was known for his skill at pulling heart strings, but the pure desolation in the question hit a new height for tear jerking even for him.

"No Danno, we need the evidence" Had Flack been paying closer attention he might have noticed the change in attitude the doubts were causing him. There was a part of him, small but growing that not only acknowledged that something might have happened last night but suspected that it had.

"After you get the evidence I can go home, and you won't tell Mac?"

"That's the plan, soon as you get the go ahead from the doc I'll take you home" The blond still seemed unsure, moving his head again in short jerking movements to get a better look around the room as if looking for another way out of this. Fast breathing turned to shuddering breaths and Flack knew that if he didn't calm the man down now the only way they'd manage to finish the kit would be to hold him down.

"Hey, Danno Danno" Flack soothed, trying to get his friend's attention back. "I promise I'll take ya home but we just gotta do this one thing first, ok?"

He leaned down to force eye contact with the curled up man, trying to convey in his own eyes the message that he was telling the truth and would not back down. It took a while, but finally Flack received a nod, though a small hesitant one. The detective looked back up at the doctor on the opposite side of his friend's bed to pass on the nod. Seconds later, while making sure to verbally explain what she was doing, she moved the covers slightly, pulled her tools closer to her on their moving tray and set to work. Seconds after that Danny's blue eyes closed again, this time with enough tears in them to spill onto the white bed sheet.

Flack sat awkwardly on the stiff hospital chair, watching as his friend attempted desperately to school his breathing and occasional sniffs and breaks in breath that showed how close to becoming a sobbing wreak he was. Hands gripped at anything they could, though in Danny's condition his bandaged palms shouldn't be gripping at anything at all. Mostly the tugged bed sheets suffered the most damage but as the woman continued her job, with a much too worried look on her face, the detective's hand began feeling the strain.

"Hey Danno" Flack said companionably as a stroke of genius hit him. "What did you think of the game last night? I swear when McGrady scored that last point I really thought the Knicks were actually going to win a game for once."

It seemed to work, with Danny opening his eyes again to peer curiously up at him before settling down to stare again in the direction of his hand, as Flack prattled on about the basketball game they had all watched the night before. And though Danny didn't let go completely, Flack's hand at least didn't feel like it had been placed in a vice.

"Ok, Danny the next part is going to hurt a little more. I need to put in some stitches. I think I can put them all in without having to resort to surgery but its going to be uncomfortable. The kit itself is done, so after this you're all finished but I'm going to need you to stay still a few more minutes, ok?"

Danny gave a stiff nod, face scraping against the sheet but Flack found he had lost all ability to communicate. Stitches meant something had to be fixed, and something that had to be fixed had been broken somehow and there was only one how that popped into his mind at this moment. Oh god. It felt as if his heart had suddenly stopped beating or had jumped into his throat, which could help explain why he was finding it so difficult to speak at the moment.

All his arguments and denial that this possibly could not have happened felt so stupid. Obviously Doctor Reynolds would have to be really sure to put her job on the line enough to even hint to him about what had happened. She had probably seen the damage herself, or another doctor had seen it when they first brought him in and took off his clothes to check for injuries. They had already known that this had happened because they had already seen the damage, it hadn't been guesswork, it had been certainty and Flack had been too much of a pig headed idiot to notice.

"Detective Flack"

Flack looked dumbly over to the doctor, who raised her eyebrows at the small figure between them. Danny had started breathing fast again, practically hyperventilating, damaged hands curled into fists as if just looking for something to direct all his fear and tension towards. A thin layer of sweat had started to form over the man's face and for what seemed the first time that night Flack recognized the emotion on Danny's pale face as not one of stubborn avoidance but complete and utter mind numbing fear. He'd never seen him like this before and just to see it was terrifying.

It wasn't a best friend's job to be terrified so Flack opened up his mouth and somehow words tumbled out. Nonsense about basketball games they'd seen, then baseball, then when he'd run out of those, hockey games though he knew the smaller man wasn't as keen on the sport as he and Adam were. The detective forced a smile, brushing hair over the man's temple as he recounted practical jokes he and Lindsay had played on various members of the public such as when getting annoyed at the speed of traffic, the woman had placed a hair dryer with her kit. They had taken it in turns to randomly point it at traffic out of the car window to scare drivers into mistaking it for a hand held traffic speedometer and slow down.

Even when it helped and Danny seemed to calm down slightly, Flack had to keep his own breathing in check, had to make sure he kept talking and kept calming him down because he didn't know what he would do without something to concentrate on. Oh god, Danny had been raped.


	5. Chapter 5

Flack tried to remember what normal breathing felt like. His long fingers had dug themselves deep into the rigid plastic of the chair on which he sat, hands holding firmly onto each side as if it were the only thing anchoring him to reality. Perhaps it was because his mind wanted nothing more than to escape what it had just gingerly accepted to be Danny's reality and his reality.

Just hours ago, while the detective had gone home, had brushed his teeth, had sung in the shower, had slept, Danny had been attacked. Danny had been- his mind baulked at the word, but Flack closed his eyes, growled at his own incompetence and forced himself to mouth the word, to feel it. Danny had been raped. Flack had waved goodbye from his taxi cab, gone home to sleep and Danny had been raped. In all their years of friendship the detective couldn't picture a time when he had betrayed his friend any more.

By the time his groggy mind spotted Stella weaving gracefully through the late afternoon build up of potential patients and nurses in the large waiting room, his fingers had lost all feeling. He managed to pry them loose from the underside of the chair before she arrived at the row of uncomfortable blue plastic chairs upon which he sat. Flack could only thank whatever deity deserved it that the Greek woman unlike Lindsey had no problems in interpreting human emotions and so knew immediately just from looking at him that something was wrong.

"Don, how badly was he hurt?" She didn't even bother with a chair, just knelt in front of him to better catch his gaze. The sudden blaze of concern in her moss green eyes was almost blinding. Don swallowed, wondering for a moment how terrible he must look to warrant such attention.

"There's some evidence I need you to process" Flack said simply, getting to his feet to shuffle along the yellow tiled floor toward the nurses desk. For some reason currently beyond his fogged over mind, ever since the revelation of what had really happened last night he'd felt like he'd worked six double shifts in a row. Feet were turned to lead, hands hung heavy by his sides, the right palm still itchy from the ghost of Danny's bandaged hand in his.

A firm grip on his bicep stopped him "Wait Don, what does that mean? Was he mugged?"

The male detective ducked his head slightly, pressing thumb and index finger deep into the corners of his eyes to chase away the tears that were starting to prickle their way into existence.

"No Stella, he was not fucking mugged!"

She leaned back suddenly as if Flack had hit her, though he couldn't blame her for being surprised. Never in the history of their friendship had he ever swore in front of her. His mother had been old fashioned and he'd been raised never to swear in front of a woman. The teaching was so strong that it was almost more a unconscious compulsion than a conscious editing of behaviour. There had only ever been one woman he was comfortable to let loose a few colourful expletives in front of. That had been Aidan, a old friend of both him and Danny who had known more unsavoury phrases than all of the men Flack had ever met put together. She had gone to games with them, been even more hot headed than Danny at times and rarely drank any other alcohol than beer. It had been difficult to think of her as anything else but one of the guys. In many ways she had been surprisingly similar to the blonde, including having a stubborn streak a mile long. That stubborn streak had led to her death after she couldn't let go the fact that she couldn't prove in front of a court that a particular criminal was guilty. It had cost her the job when she went against her nature as a CSI and attempted to plant evidence, then it had cost her her life when she started following the guy to prevent him from hurting someone else. He had been a rapist, and with the damage the guy had done after he'd murdered her they would never know whether he had just murdered her or raped her first.

It still hurt to think about after all these years, but it helped to remind himself of the positives. Danny was damaged, that much he could accept but he was still alive. The blonde hadn't been murdered like their friend Aidan and though right now it was still hard to feel grateful about anything in this situation, Flack was grateful of that.

"I'm sorry Stell" The dark haired man took a moment to calm himself down, drawing in large slow breathes that he needed but didn't want. "Its just been a really hard day and I need you to trust me on this."

"I trust you Flack" The Greek woman said without hesitation, "but you've got to admit this situation raises a lot of questions. 'You need to come to the hospital, its Danny but you can't tell anyone especially not Mac'. Flack, why not Mac?"

"Please Stell, just sign for the evidence then I'll explain" Flack transferred his hand to his forehead, rubbing there instead to ward off a headache. The one good thing about all the stress this whole chaotic situation was bringing on him was that everyone seemed to be giving him a wide berth. He wasn't sure whether it was his six foot two inch height he had to thank, the tense 'bear with a toothache' stare he'd been giving people that got too close or a combination of the two but either way the wall of the waiting room they occupied had been pretty much deserted for a while.

"Ok" she agreed, striding immediately for the nurses desk in those impossible length high heels that she wore much too often, a bulging plastic bag swinging from one hand. "But as soon as I sign for it you tell me what's going on or so help me there will be consequences."

Flack stayed close by her side as she smiled at the nurse behind the desk, the same young blonde with pretty dancing ringlets that had comforted him earlier when he had first brought Danny in. She looked up at him with a moment of fleeting recognition but that was it, with the amount of faces she must see every day it was not wonder she barely recognised him, she probably wouldn't recognise Danny either. Only Doctor Reynolds and the red headed hefty nurse had seemed to truly see him, everyone else tried to be sympathetic and reassuring after they looked at his chart, but it just felt like they were going through the motions. Not that he could blame them, whenever they got a particularly poignant case he and the rest of the team did exactly the same thing to distance themselves from the heartache. The moment you let a case get to you and you brought it home was when you had to start worrying for your sanity.

"This isn't right" Stella said quietly, flicking her brown curls behind a ear in a way that she only did when nervous. On the smooth surface of the desk in front of her sat a distinctive box that all CSIs had learned to recognise by sight. Next to it abandoned was the clipboard she had just signed along with a simple large brown paper bag folded over and sealed with tape to maintain the chain of evidence. Danny's clothes were in there.

"There's been a mistake" she played with her hair again, casting a nervous smile to the prepubescent nurse. It was so much like his own reaction that Flack had to choke back the sudden urge to scream at her.

"It's not a mistake Stell" he said instead, words perfectly calm.

"But Flack" the brunette woman said, turning her confusion to him instead. "This is..."

Stella's words trailed off, not able to give the rape kit a name and therefore confirm it's existence. She gestured pointedly to the small sealed box as if that was direction enough, then froze staring upwards at his expression. As always the greek detective could read him like a book and this book obviously didn't go the way she had expected it to.

"Oh God" she muttered simply, eyes widening in shock and a hand clamped compulsively to her mouth. It was only when he heard the small thud by his shoes that he realised she had dropped the plastic bag.

Flack reached down to scoop it up and with his other arm guided the woman steadily toward the end of the row of plastic chairs. Not for the first time he was surprised by her sheer dedication to her job as even in the state of shock she had descended into, Stella still managed to back her way out of his grip enough to pick up the evidence from the desk before continuing to their seating arrangements. She sat with the brown evidence bag on her sensible black slacks, the offending box placed carefully on top of it.

For a long time she just stared at it, and Don could think of nothing that was worth saying to avert her attention. Usually Flack was the comforting one, right now he knew he should be placing a companionable arm on her shoulders or mentioning something reassuring but everything he could think of that he had used to people he had met in similar situations sounded hollow and at worse untrue. Everything was not OK, because Danny was hurt, and though he could utter the words Flack really had no clue whether or not everything would be OK, not after the way the blonde had looked at him and pleaded to be allowed to go home. So Flack sat, hunched with elbows on his knees and plastic bag by his feet, waiting for whatever Stella would say next.

"Don, how sure are you about this?"

Air seemed to catch uncomfortably in his throat at the similarity of the phrases. Even the tone was similar, outwardly calm and collected with a undercurrent of wavering shock. The only difference was that Stella had taken a much shorter time to get to this point than he had. It just went to show how much trust she had in him, she knew he wouldn't lie to her, not about something like this. Particularly after all she'd gone through after being attacked by her ex-boyfriend, the time she'd had a box like that of her own.

"I'm sure" Flack confirmed simply.

Tears almost fell from her green eyes at the words, but Stella bent her head forward using her billowing curls to her advantage to hide the liquid as she drew a quick hand across her face. She sniffed two times then seemed to decide that she was done, drawing herself up to her full height in the plastic chair but her voice still cracked under her next words.

"Is he – how is he?"

"Doc says I can take him home, its mostly cuts and bruises and the wound to his head checked out, but" the man knew this wasn't the information she wanted. As interested as she was in Danny's physical state, that wasn't the thing she was most worried about. Stella knew that if the blond was in seriously bad physical shape that he would have mentioned it already, the fact that he hadn't meant that the male detective was more worried about something else as well.

"His head isn't quite all there, and sometimes its like all of him goes off on a little vacation but its just shock. The Doc says give it a few days then he'll – then it'll be better." It felt like he was invading Danny's privacy just talking about this stuff but he knew Stella would guard the admission to her grave. And after all this time and all this mind reeling stress, Don needed someone to talk to about what had just turned his life upside down.

Most problems or worries he'd go to Danny about unless he felt they might hurt or inconvenience the smaller man in some way, in which case he'd go to Mac if he really needed help. It wasn't that he didn't trust Danny as much as Mac when it came to serious problems, it was just that to put it in a crude way the blonde had as long as Don had known him never been completely emotionally stable. Danny was hot headed and when he felt something he felt it deeply. Growing up in one of the most dangerous places of Staten Island had left him with a hard head and trust issues so deep it was sometimes a wonder he had managed to keep such a solid group of friends for so long. And the guy had been through so much over the last few years, he'd been accused of shooting a cop and nearly drove himself into a panic attack convincing himself that they didn't believe he didn't do it. Then there had been his older brother who hadn't managed to escape the gangs that ran riot in their old neighbourhood, they'd beaten him to near death after they tried to drag Danny's career down with them. Louie had died later on, surrounded by family in the hospital. Not a bad way to go, but as Danny had said to him later that evening on Don's couch, he shouldn't have gone at all. Not to mention more recently, his going off the rails after a neighbour kid who the guy had practically helped raise for a year died while Danny had looked after him. It had taken him a long time to stop the blonde from closing himself off and get back to resembling normal after that.

All in all Danny had been through much too much during his lifetime. Being an older sibling himself, Don had naturally taken on the big brother role with the impulsive man when he had first met him years ago. Through the years of blow after blow to the blonde, Flack had drawn him closer and paid as much attention if not more to the smaller man as he did his own younger siblings. Which was why he found himself increasingly turning to the ever reliable and stoic Detective Mac Taylor when he had a problem he didn't know how to solve. In this situation though, he couldn't turn to Danny or Mac about it and though he had faith in Stella's ability to cope he missed his other friends.

Stella seemed to visibly swallow whatever instinctive response she had to his words and instead lifted up the plastic bag between them and placed it in his arms. "I raided his locker, you said he needed a change of clothes."

"Thanks Stell" Flack said sounding robotic, because what were you really supposed to say in a situation like this one?

"I'm going to need to let Mac know what's happened" Stella warned remembering what they'd been talking about before she'd found all of this out.

Flack shook his head almost violently, "look Stell, the only reason you're sitting there holding that evidence is because I promised I'd do my best to make sure Mac didn't find out. The only way I got Mr 'Stubborn is my middle name' to consent to a kit was to threaten to tell him myself."

Stella blinked her long lashes looking as confused as Flack felt as to why Danny would single out their boss to be the one that didn't know what had happened to him. "Flack we need Mac's help on this. I need Mac's help with this."

The dark haired man knew why this was so hard on her. Stella Bonasera and Mac Taylor had worked together so many years both of them were probably afraid to count. They pre dated all of their team and had as close if not a closer friendship than any of them, including Don and Danny. Mac and Stella worked side by side doggedly trudging through each new case, bickering with one another, comforting each other and confiding each other with every secret or problem from where to buy the best pizza to how best to catch a serial killer. They loved and trusted each other as much as anyone would who had spent years working day in day out with someone whose actions determined whether you lived or died.

He was asking her to hide something from her best friend and more than that forego the opportunities to lean on him throughout this mess, something Don knew she desperately needed right now. The male detective drew the plastic bag close to his chest with one hand, using the other to hold up his aching head, elbow perched on his knee. Tired didn't even come close to describing how he felt, his chest felt heavy, eyes stinging like he had sand in them and every muscle was weighed down so firmly that moving had become a chore and at times even breathing seemed to require much too much effort.

"You can't make me lie to him Stell" Flack turned to face her in the chair and for once didn't make an effort to hide the newly formed sheen to his blue eyes. It didn't seem to matter now. "If you make me a liar Danny will never trust me again."

Not that Flack thought he deserved Danny's trust, not after leaving him like that and not noticing his friend had needed help.

Stella simply nodded, eyes surprised but set by his argument. "I'll see what I can do."

It was agony waiting for the doctor to officially clear Danny so they could go on their way home. For some reason even unknown to himself, Flack just got the feeling that once he took the blonde back to his apartment where it was normal and didn't smell like disinfectant and hospital then he would start getting back to his usual self. Not that thinking realistically that made any logical sense but after all the harsh truths he had learned that day Flack wanted done with thinking realistically for a while at least.

Since the evidence had been collected Danny hadn't spoken a word. At first the blonde just lay there on his side on the bed where they left him. Then after Flack had come back to pass on the bag full of clothes the smaller man had sat up stiffly and painfully pulling the hospital gown over his head before Flack could even ask if he needed any help. The dark haired man cleared his throat awkwardly as Danny sat naked for a moment but for bandages and a blanket across his waist before tugging on a dark green t-shirt with only a few winces to mark the fact that he really shouldn't be using his hands so much.

It wasn't like they hadn't seen each other in various states of undress before. While Don had been brought up respecting boundaries and modesty, he'd been suspecting for a while that Danny may have lacked in some areas of that education. When weather permitted it and he was at home, sweatpants and Flack hoped underwear as well was the dress code, which Flack had to admit he did himself on occasion though not with as much ease around company as Danny. Then there was the way that he casually dressed in the locker room, tossing clothes on and off with such absent mindedness that it was a wonder no easily offended female had reported him yet. Those two examples alone may give Flack the label of 'prude' and Danny 'normal' but the taller detective dared any challenger to observe the rare night where the blonde managed to drink enough beer to actually get drunk and decided in his usual stubborn way that clothes really were too uncomfortable to walk home in on a warm night. After even one night running down the high street picking up clothes and hoping like hell the pouting blonde wasn't going to be picked up for public nudity anyone might start to see things his way. If that wasn't enough to raise a question mark there was also the annoying but slightly endearing times Danny wearing only boxers had climbed on his bed to shake him awake and ask with a too happy grin whether he could have some treat or another from the freezer. And the just plain annoying times he had wandered into the bathroom while Flack was using the shower to ask the same kind of thing.

However if there were any time modesty were to enter Danny's mind, surely it would be now? Flack was sure that he was supposed to be happy that at least something hadn't changed, but there were marks. Teeth marks were the most obvious and disturbing, glowing red on the man's stomach and shoulders. Flack didn't want to have to see them. There were cuts too across Danny's upper back, though most were covered with gauze, some still peaked out. It was a nasty picture that jumped happily into his aching head and like an annoying flatmate refused to leave.

Standing at a slight angle from the bed so he wouldn't have to look as the blonde revealed more wounds to the air of the sterile hospital room, it took much longer than it should have to notice Danny was having trouble. The smaller man sat back against the metal headboard at the top of the bed, trying to use the edge of the mattress to manoeuvre his feet up enough to slip through the boxer shorts. It wasn't working and from the wetness brimming in the man's blue eyes it was more than a little painful even with the drugs in his system.

Thankfully as Flack stepped forward quietly the blue blanket Doctor Reynolds had given Danny earlier still covered the man's waist and thighs. The only new wounds that caused him to shudder were the neat bruising around Danny's lower legs, the right width of a pair of large male hands and clear restraint marks. There was also red blotched bruising and scrapes on his knees as well as the scrapes he had already seen earlier on the tops and bottom of Danny's feet. Flack didn't even try to decide what those meant.

Without trusting himself to speak, the dark haired detective removed the material from his friend's bandaged hand and moved him easily so Danny's feet once again hung over the edge of the bed. The blonde transformed suddenly to stone as Flack placed the clothing over the dangling feet and pulled the material up, lifting the man from the mattress like a child to place it correctly. Neither said a word as Flack did the same for the sweatpants, thankful that Stella had thought things through enough to get comfortable clothing even if she hadn't known the specifics of the injuries at that point.

Danny hadn't even tried to help, keeping arms firmly fixed to his sides throughout the ordeal. Considering how independent the blonde usually was when injured it only served to heighten the volume of Flack's worries about his friend's changed behaviour. Already he was having problems keeping them quiet enough to be able to hear anything else.

By the time Doctor Reynold's entered the room again, bringing a wheel chair and that same grim smile Danny was driving him insane. All the smaller man did was sit awkwardly, looking vacantly around the room or at his clenched feet. It wasn't how he was supposed to act. Danny was supposed to be grinning by now, chatting away or telling a joke or maybe bored and whining like a three year old, asking when he could go home over and over just to annoy Flack. Compared to his usual animated self Danny looked dead.

The doctor took her time explaining the medications Danny had to take to the both of them. There was a whole host of them, so Flack was grateful when she caught on that he really wasn't taking much in at this time and scribbled out some notes to give him as well as the prescription. Apparently the dose of painkillers she had already given the blonde should last a few more hours, and then it was onto a heavy regime of pain pills, antibiotics, anti nausea pills so he didn't up chuck the antibiotics and some stool softeners that he would rather not think about at this moment in time. In fact there were rather a lot of things Flack had learnt today that he would rather not think about.

"And I expect to see you two again in three weeks time so I can remove some of those stitches. Though feel free to contact me sooner if there's anything you are unsure of or need help with" she finished finally when she had wheeled Danny out to the parking lot, Flack a metre or so in front already unlocking the car.

"Isn't that usually a nurses job?" Flack asked with a frown as he opened the passenger door wide, though Danny made no movement towards it.

"I'm making this a priority case" the brunette doctor explained, patting the blonde gently on the shoulder before bending down to look him in the eye.

"You're going to be fine" Doctor Reynolds said, brown eyes firm and sure. "You have a lot of people who care about you, and no matter what happens over the next few months I don't want you to forget that."

She leaned back satisfied that she had conveyed her message, though Danny's focus had not shifted from his lap where his bandaged fists lay. Standing she turned her attention to the taller man, stepping closer before speaking in a quieter tone. "If he's still not speaking after tomorrow I want you to contact me. You've got my personal number as well so you'll be able to reach me."

"Com'n Danno" Flack said softly, not getting or expecting a response. Fast getting used to this way of doing things he tucked his hands under the man's arms, lifting him up to the car seat though was shocked with relief when this time Danny pushed his legs down and gripped the front of his shirt in an effort to help. Shutting the silver door and moving around the front of the car, Don felt a teary grin split his face when he noticed that this time the spiky headed blonde had already pulled on a seatbelt by the time Flack stepped inside the vehicle. Somewhere underneath the fear and shock of what he had gone through Danny was still in there.

It wasn't that Detective Mac Taylor was a scary man, though to suspects and those people he just met that was exactly what he would be described as. To those that knew him, and particularly those that knew him well like the odd members of their close knit family group 'scary' only ever came up when they really stepped out of line, until that point he was firm but fair and in his own stoic way even caring. So maybe it was only Flack's particular daddy issues that made his insides curl in on themselves as he finally worked up the courage to walk into the older man's office.

In a way Mac really was the father figure of the team, which by reasoning made Flack the oldest son who was the only 'child' respected and mature enough to be able to criticise and correct the head of CSI. The fact that he was officially hired by another department helped too, it was dodgy business calling your own boss on his mistakes. Hawkes would be the golden child, never seeming to need that much attention and always performing above all expectations. Danny would be the middle son, reckless, impulsive and forever needing reining in, despite the fact that Flack was actually a couple of years younger than the man, an easy piece of information to forget. Adam was definitely the youngest, innocent, naïve and in need of shelter and guidance. Lindsay would be the precious though unconventional daughter, needing praise for her enthusiastic outlook on life and funnily enough tutoring on being in touch with her feelings – or maybe she should be counted as yet another son, Flack wasn't too sure on the matter. If they were judging by expertise at baseball then Lindsay would have no problem beating Hawkes to the title. That left Stella being their mother – a concept Don found quite disturbing considering how many times he had checked her out. Sid the coroner could be a creepy uncle, no one would argue with that assessment.

They fitted together to make a very odd family, but a family none the less. With the amount of things they had been through together, happy and sad over so many years there was no way any of them could consider themselves just friends. Friends took each other to games and went out drinking together, they didn't tackle their nearly naked drunk friends and bundle them into the back of taxis so they didn't get picked up by the police, and they didn't shoot people to save their friend's lives. Family did that. Thinking it over Flack had the feeling that was what made him so nervous when he took those first steps into the room. He knew he was going to have to lie to family and he didn't like that idea one bit.

Mac Taylor, a stern faced man in his late forties looked up from an intimidating mound of paperwork stacked in neat organised piles along the front of his desk. Everything about the office was organised, including the neat medals and photographs arranged carefully on a column of shelves placed on the wall behind his chair. A large display screen lined up perfectly with the smooth black desk shone with a view of the city, waiting to be used to display everything they needed to know about the next piece of evidence. To the right of the pile of paperwork, perched on the end of the desk was an attached computer screen, something no one seemed to be able to get away from using in this modern time, despite the confusing fact that they still wanted paperwork in paper format as well.

Most of the office walls were made of glass, including the entire front and most of the side walls. The small section of plaster that had been spared the chic overhaul was painted a cheery yellow, not something that represented the worried look on the face of the owner of the office as he recognised Don and tilted his head to usher the man inside. Flack accepted the unworded invitation with the same grim expression he'd been wearing ever since he'd left his friend at Danny's apartment. The younger detective made sure to close the door firmly before bypassing the row of small red cushioned chairs by the doorway; a precaution to make sure Mac was able to accommodate every member of his team for a talk whenever they needed it, and seating himself heavily on the grey wheel based chair directly across from the CSI head.

"Its a big favour Don" Mac Taylor said finally, firm blue eyes with a touch more grey than Danny's holding his own over the table. The man managed quite well to walk that line between too uptight and too causal, creating a very professional aura. His brown hair was cut neatly and short enough to not be surprised that the man had spent a fair amount of his time with it buzzed off during his time in the marines. A neatly pressed blue shirt with fitted black suit jacket and slacks showed that he was aware of the image he had to portray in his job, while the lack of tie and undoing of the top shirt button showed he was only willing to go so far to please his higher ups.

"Look Mac I'm not saying be hands off the case, you could still see everything but the identifying features" Flack reasoned, secretly hoping that Mac would say no, that there was no way he could do it. Sure after how tense he was about it, Danny would shout, he would scream and yell. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe Danny would just close in on himself again, become this alien silent creature he had morphed into, forever. The whole ride back to the blonde's place, Danny hadn't said a word, not even when Flack had been forced to pick him up again in order to get him inside. Danny had just clung and closed his eyes again, the only communication of protest other than the continuously tense muscles. Those eyes had only reopened when Flack had placed him on the bed, taken the man's shoes off and tucked him in like he'd been doing it all his life. The blonde hadn't thought he'd noticed, or maybe he hadn't cared, but Flack had watched from the doorway as Danny had stared unevenly at the ceiling through his swollen eye, silent and expressionless before finally falling asleep a good ten minutes later.

Flack could really use some advice and help from his older friend and in a lot of ways his mentor right now.

"And I'm not saying the guy won't change his mind further down the line when the shock isn't you know, so present. But right now he just wants you not to know it's him."

"Okay Don" Mac drew a hand down his weary face, though he didn't look half as exhausted as the man standing in front of him. "I need some specifics to justify even thinking about not having full access to my cases."

Don looked down at the smooth surface of the desk in front of him as if it could supply him with the right answers.

"It was one of my guys Mac" Flack said finally, emotion forcing itself into the tone, breaking up the words. It was the truth in a way, in his way of thinking there was no doubt that he counted Danny as one of his guys, but Mac wouldn't think that right away. The older man was a scientist, so he would go with the concrete definition. Given that Flack was not a crime scene investigator like the rest of them, the detective's guys consisted of the detectives and officers in his squad, and there were a lot of those. "There's a SOEC kit with the evidence."

If Mac had been any less professional he would have swore at the statement, perhaps if he knew it was Danny he would have. As it was the older man limply dropped the pen he had been holding and leaned back in his tall black office chair, eyes wide. It was only for a moment before he regained his composure, leaning forward slightly with a new tension to his posture. Mac Taylor knew what it was like to fear for his own team mates well being, even their sanity. He understood, somewhat at least what Don was going through even if he was not privy to the full facts.

"How sure are you that its going to come back positive?"

Now was Flack's turn to lean back in his chair, though through exhaustion rather than shock. This was one question that he almost wished he didn't have the answer to. Things were so much simpler when Danny was the guy that nothing like this would ever happen to. Now that he was positive it had, the knowledge became like a cold rock lodged deep inside his chest. Sometimes that realisation weighed so heavy that Flack could barely breathe.

"He was raped Mac" despite all his practice rolling the word around in his mind and forcing himself to rehearse saying it, Flack still choked when forcing out the statement. Still, he set his jaw firm, blue eyes steeled with sincerity, pain, anger and guilt that all inner turmoil that to Mac Taylor proved without a doubt that Flack was sure about this.

"And he doesn't want me to know that" Mac concluded sighing. In the last few minutes it looked like he had aged ten years. "Why not me Don?"

Flack decided that an explanation, even if it might be a wrong one would raise less suspicion than no explanation at all. "Ya kidding me Mac. Don't try telling me you haven't noticed that half the officers in this precinct idolise you. You say things to the higher ups that would get anyone else's badge taken away and because your so brilliant at your job they can't do anything about it. You're like the superhero to every disgruntled employee or wide eyed newbie. The only way I could convince him to make this a case was to promise I'd try and make sure you didn't know what happened to him. He wasn't too clear on his reasons, but no one wants their hero to find out – something like that."

Mac tilted his head forward, looking much older than his forty eight years and Don was aware for the first time that he looked guilty. Something in Flack didn't mind that as much as he thought he would have, the same part of him that was slowly eroding under his own guilt and quite liked the idea of assigning some of that shame to someone else. Then he caught himself, not so far drowned that he did not recognise the unfairness of applying blame to Mac when it was Flack who had been the last one to see Danny that night, and so Flack that should have checked that the blonde had made it home.

"Ok, Stella can handle the case" Mac sighed finally, rubbing his eyes as if irritated by the whole event. Flack wasn't sure if he was supposed to be feeling irritated as well, he wasn't sure what he should be feeling at all apart from the acid guilt and a heavy tiredness. Everything else felt kind of numb. "She can remove the identifying information when I review the case, but when it comes time to submit to the DA I'm not sure I'll be legally able to sign off on it without knowing all the evidence. That's all I can give you now Don, but if I'm called up on it or something changes in the case then I'm not sure I'll be able to stick to it."

"Thanks Mac" Flack said, really not feeling very thankful at all. He could have really used some of the older man's famous advice right about now, but if he didn't find out it was Danny then Flack knew he couldn't ask, and he wasn't about to break the promise he'd had made and tell either. He lifted himself out of the grey chair, intent of making his exit and perhaps seeing how far Stella had gotten with the evidence. "I know its a lot to ask so thank you."

"Don" the ex marine called out when Flack had almost made it to the transparent door. Mac looked a little nervous for a moment before that foreign emotion was pushed out of the steel blue eyes and replaced with the more familiar unreadable gaze. "Tell him not to forget he's one of ours, that he has friends here he can count on."

Flack nodded "I'll tell him that."

Stella looked up when he entered the DNA lab, another room surrounded by see through glass and occupied by a disturbing amount of shiny surfaces. Quickly the brunette placed her head down again, pretending to be busy looking through the microscope. Her eyes were red rimmed and she'd clearly been crying. Usually this room was filled with a production line of lab techs, processing sample after sample, but the time had progressed from day shift into swing shift which had less man power. Currently the room was empty which is likely why she had chosen to do the processing in here instead of one of the smaller rooms which had less equipment.

"Flack I know you're very tied up in this case, but its only been three hours since you handed me the evidence, I've barely started processing. You should be with Danny right now."

Flack blinked before moving closer, he deserved that. "I came in because I had to talk things over with Mac. Thought I might as well see how you are doing before I left."

The Greek woman moved briskly from the microscope to scribble something down on a nearby form, before typing something Flack couldn't see into the computer perched on the long table placed on her left. "I told you, I've barely started. I've just managed to isolate a couple of samples and put them in for processing."

"That's not what I said" Flack explained, moving around the lab table to her side. "How are you?"

Stella looked up from her height of five feet eight inches, and blinked green eyes that were smudged with mascara she hadn't managed to clean off after it had ran. Those persistent blue eyes staring down at her looked every bit as exhausted as she felt. "Don I'm fine. Its just – this case – Danny."

"I know" Flack nodded. Oh god, he wished he didn't. It was odd to think that less than twenty four hours ago everything had been normal. Danny had been the guy who jumped on suspects three times his size to knock them out, always ready with a joke and a wide grin. He would trail beside him chattering a mile a minute about whatever topic had just taken his interest, looking up and laughing. Danny was the loyal friend and the hero, like he had said earlier to the doctor in the hospital – Danny was not a victim. Only now he was, and that fact alone was still hard to swallow.

Stella stood up straight, squaring her shoulders as she faced him. "God Don, how is he? I mean really – how is he coping with all this?"

Flack swallowed, having to turn away and close his eyes for a moment before answering. He hadn't cried yet and a big part of him filled with distain at the mere notion of sheding tears at this. It wasn't like Danny was dead, and it was stupid to morn something that wasn't even gone. On another note shedding tears felt selfish, and he knew right now it wouldn't help his friend, but sometimes he'd get so close to that point of breaking down it was painful to force them away.

"I don't think he's doing good, Stell" whatever he was going through emotionally it helped to know that there was someone he could talk to about his worries. "He hasn't talked, not a word since the kit. He doesn't even look at me any more – the doc says it could still be the shock and its too early to say whether it'll last long but he doesn't even look at me Stell."

The Greek detective nodded, covering her mouth with a long fingered palm to cover what might have been the beginnings of a sob, before moving to gather up the paperwork she'd been writing in. Her hands shook as she piled it up into a brown case folder with a long case number, then 'John Doe' then another long number identifying exactly which John Doe it was referring to.

"Is this Danny's case folder? What did you find out Stell?" Flack queried, knowing that at this moment in time facts would help. If he were to really admit what he wanted right now, and the reason he had left the blonde once he had fallen asleep, the detective wanted to work and to forget. Being the one with Danny was important, he knew that and in a sense he did really want to be there and make sure he was looked after but he also wanted to distance himself from this and pretend it was just another case. That was next to impossible when dealing with the raw pain and guilt he felt looking at Danny's face.

"Don" she sighed, "I've barely had time to do any tests. You'll have to wait."

Flack frowned, not convinced by how nervous the woman had suddenly become, ignoring him and trying to look focused on the task of sorting the paperwork – something he had noticed she did when hiding something. "But you have had time to run some tests."

"Its only preliminary"

"Tell me."

She turned around, arms moving to draw abstract shapes in the air in the way she did when nervous or angry. "Ok, but you're not going to like it Don."

Then her hands stopped moving, dropping suddenly deflated to hang limply by her sides. "I did a preliminary test on the swabs. A visual comparison showed presence of semen on the mouth and anal swaps, and some of the body swabs. I've prepared them for testing, but its going to be a good few days before we get DNA back, probably more with the backlog. But as far as preliminary testing goes, the rape kit came back positive."

It wasn't the leaning back into a wall and sighing with relief moment that he realised now an unconscious part of him had still been hoping for. It was the opposite and it was somehow still terrible even though he'd known it was coming. Flack closed his eyes and leaned forward, concentrating on breathing.

It was a while before he noticed the hand on his shoulder, massaging its way into the tense muscle. The black haired detective looked up when it finally felt like he wasn't going to pass out and looked into his friend's green eyes, drawing some comfort from her being here and him not being alone in this.

"You need to go home and see Danny" Stella announced softly, her voice and movements reassuring.

That's when Flack noticed the deep seated concern that had forced its way through the numb shock, to the top of his heart where he felt it stab deep. He really did need to see him, and right now.


	6. Chapter 6

Flack wasn't sure what he expected to find when he arrived back at Danny's apartment, but as he unlocked the front door his nerves felt like piano wire stretched too tight over a hot flame. When he thought over what he had just done it was not surprising. The detective had left a man whose emotional stability he considered questionable at the best of times, alone after the man had been beaten up and raped. To say his actions were deplorable would be to give himself a kindness that he was sure he didn't deserve.

Judging by the surprise that stilled him in his tracks after opening the door to Danny's bedroom however, what he found was not something he expected.

Aside from slight differences in position the blonde was lying asleep in exactly the same place Flack had left him. The smaller man had turned slightly in his absence, so he was positioned more on his side than flat on his back, facing the doorway, cheek buried into a pillow and right arm escaped from the blanket to sprawl over the edge of the bed. He looked almost normal, almost peaceful. If it weren't for the bruises and the angry stitched cuts running up the man's visible arm Flack could pretend that he really was OK and that peaceful expression wouldn't disappear as soon as he awoke.

Now his fears had been proven false and Danny was not in some dangerous fear driven psychotic state the adrenalin leached slowly from his system. Causing the detective to slump slowly to the floor as he realised that tension driven energy had probably been the only thing keeping him upright for the last few hours. Flack raised a hand to run slowly through his dark brown hair in a self soothing motion as he finally allowed the days events to wash over him. It had only been a day – a little less in fact if one were to get overly precise since they had said their goodbyes and he had left Danny to walk home by himself.

If he had one of those time machines from those odd programmes Adam loved to watch so much and went back in time just twenty four hours, they would still be laughing and playing pool. None of this would have ever happened. It seemed so weird to think of it being such a short while ago. It felt like a different era entirely when Flack had believed whole heartedly that nothing like this could possibly happen to his friend.

Though as his grandma had so wisely said during his youth, "what has been done can not be undone". It would do no good to Danny or himself to just focus on what went wrong, what he could have done differently. Although they still nagged at his mind, and he knew would haunt his sleep instead he had to focus on something more productive to his friend. Flack would be there for Danny, he didn't have any idea what he needed to do to help the blonde but the detective was repulsed by the idea of just leaving him alone again so soon. He didn't know how much help he could be in a situation like this, but apart from Stella who he needed concentrated on the evidence side of things he was all Danny had, who knew enough about what had happened to help.

Flack didn't plan on letting Danny down again.

Waking up was possibly the most painful experience Danny Messer had ever felt. Well, not quite. His mind was sharp enough that he knew the painkillers must have worn off, but ragged enough from the pain itself that at first he didn't recognise where he was. It took many head spinning moments of looking around the room before he realised why the unfocused blur was not falling into place. Sometime last night during all that had happened he had lost a contact lens and after so long spent sleeping the other had dried out enough to rub irritably again his cornea like sandpaper and aided his vision only slightly. It was only by smell and the pattern of his sheets that he recognised the place he was in as his own bedroom.

Impulsively the blonde reached up to rub the intrusion from his right eye with his left arm, the one that seemed to protest the least at being moved, only to stop upon seeing the gauze. It wasn't like he didn't remember it being bandaged, he did, but it was far away and disconnected from him. Almost like it had happened to someone else and Danny had just been there as a casual observer.

From this distance he could see the bruises that twisted around his wrists and down his arm, every bone under the slowly darkening skin felt like it had shattered. Though Danny knew from the doctor that that hadn't been the case, she had sounded so happy when she'd told him that he'd suffered no broken bones. The blonde swallowed a pit of nausea at the memory. He knew that was bull shit, that it was just proof that he could have fought back some more.

Every finger tip on his left hand had been scraped free of skin, the little finger was even missing most of its nail. Danny found he had to swallow again at the memory, of scrabbling for some kind of way out till his hands left bloody lines and smears. Still, the irritation refused to leave so with arms that felt like jelly and raw fingers he managed to pluck out the remaining lens, tossing it carelessly to the floor.

Irritation dealt with, Danny reached blindly toward the night table where he kept his glasses, moving the rest of his body. The pain exploded in protest, reminding him firmly of the rest of his wounds. Lights danced behind his eyes as his body jerked back to vaguely its former position in an attempt at appeasement but the damage had already been done. A high pitched whimper turned into a whine and the blurred room faded in and out of darkness like a broken television. It felt like someone had set fire to all his nerves, the only way he could think to describe it was that parts of his body felt not only beaten and broken but shredded as well.

It was during one of those out of sync moments where the world faded to confusing static that the arms looped his chest and back, raising him to an odd sitting position. So it took Danny a few seconds to register that someone had perched on the edge of the mattress, holding him up. A large arm circled his chest, leaning him into the side of a larger body so the blonde wouldn't have the discomfort of sitting fully vertical. The second hand smoothed his hair in a way his mother had done when he was a small child lying in bed with a fever. Honestly, right now Danny couldn't decide whether it was comforting or disconcerting.

"I'm sorry Danno. You were sleeping so peacefully I didn't want to wake you to give you your pills."

Danny knew that voice, had known it for years. In his pain fogged state the image came before the name: tall, dark hair, sharp wit, protective nature, friend. He could see clearly in his mind Don Flack presenting him with a steady smile after one of his jokes or shouting at the television beside him during a basket ball game. The smaller man felt his cheeks heat up, almost choking on the next wave of nausea. God, Don knew what happened to him.

"Com'n Dan. Open up."

Danny didn't even realise he'd closed his eyes until he opened them again and saw the hand held out in front of his mouth. He could barely see the small colourful objects that he supposed were pills. Thinking logically, at least some of them would be painkillers, so if he took them then the pain that was flooding his senses and fogging his brain should go away. Only Danny wasn't thinking logically, so instinctively his jaw clamped shut.

"_You bite down and I'll shoot out the back of your skull."_

"Com'n Dan" Don sounded near tears. "It'll make you feel better I promise."

The blonde could feel himself being shifted, and felt warm skin against the side of his face, and movement as the other man swallowed. Danny wasn't sure if he should be feeling uncomfortable having someone so close to him after what had happened. He wasn't sure what he should be feeling.

"Just take this one at least Danny. It'll stop you hurting."

The arm tightened around his chest, the other hand reaching for his mouth. A weight settled on the top of his head that made it difficult to move, it took a couple of moments before he realised his head had been tucked under the someone – Don's chin. The blonde couldn't count the time between that moment and when he felt fingers at his lips attempting to pry his teeth apart. Time before that and after was jumbled and twisted in pain but that one bare second when the hand wrapped around his jaw flashed in his brain so bright Danny wasn't sure he would ever forget it or that he could.

If it didn't involve opening his mouth Danny would have screamed. As it was something like a strangled whimper escaped between clenched teeth.

"_Oh look, he's crying like a little bitch" laughter rolled around the air as metal was removed from between his teeth, blood dripping after it. _

Hot tears stained his cheeks and Danny couldn't remember when they'd started falling. He also couldn't remember when they'd ended up on the floor. Air quaked in and out of his chest at such an unsteady speed that his whole body seemed to twitch and spasm at the pressure. The arms were still there, one resting on his back below the bump of the bandage, the other with a gentle hold on his right wrist.

The presence at Danny's left side was making sounds, all of them soothing. Eyes fixed on the royal blue carpet that covered his bedroom floor, the blonde couldn't force himself to look up at the man knelt by his side. Instead, now that no one was moving or making him open his mouth he focused on slowing his breathing, until finally he could make out some words the other man was saying.

"Its fine Danno, you don't have to take pills. I'm not gonna make you. Just stay still or you'll pop some stitches" Don sounded scared, terrified in fact and in a half aware state Danny wondered what on earth could make his friend so terrified. He didn't think he'd ever heard Don so scared.

Pain had twisted his insides into mangled knots, but above anything else his ass and his back burned. The headache throbbing within the blond's skull was almost a blessing as every time the pain beat out its savage rhythm, it came close to drowning out all the other screaming complaints. At least for a moment, before it paused, mallet held high above his skull to allow everything else to screech up through his nerve endings, before descending another crushing blow.

Danny wasn't sure whether it was the pain that had caused his cheeks to be so wet, or if it were something else. The tears seemed to be thinning now but as he disentangled his hand from Don's grip to gingerly wipe at his eyes it felt like he must have been been crying longer than he thought.

Last night felt so surreal it was more like a nightmare than it was reality, and yet the memories themselves were so bright and vivid and painful that Danny knew without a doubt what had happened. Though the words that would be used to describe it, to classify what happened still stood shrouded in too much confusion and denial to employ within his mind. It was as if the entire night's events after leaving his friends, after hearing those footsteps, all of it until the present moment was still waiting to be processed in his brain. And Danny had no problems in letting it wait.

"Good Danny, just breathe." Don's hand moved against his back he supposed to be soothing but Danny could not help but tense. The smaller man knew that his actions didn't make sense. Don had been damn near hugging him only a few minutes ago and it didn't seem to matter. Maybe it was just that he was further from the point of waking and so further into reality. Or maybe there was a part of him still blaming the man for taking an action that reminded the blonde so painfully and vilely what had happened. Maybe it was neither of those and he was just messed up and taken a little longer to realise it.

"Just leave." Was that really his voice? It sounded like he'd been gargling sandpaper. Danny blinked, eyes still fixed on the blue carpet, wondering at how such a hoarse fractured sound could possibly be coming from his throat.

For a moment the room was still. The only sounds swimming through Danny's head being two sets of breathing, one quiet, the other heavy and wet like someone who had been crying. One of those was his he knew but he couldn't immediately discern which. Blue carpet blurred before the blonde's eyes then sharpened just a little then blurred again. Pounding within his skull the headache brought with it a peculiar sensation stinging in the pit of his stomach like he was falling really fast.

Only when a hand upon his left shoulder fixing him in place did Danny realise that he'd been moving, leaning forward unconsciously in search of some kind of support. The hand had disappeared from his back, that was what must have caused the change. Settling itself into even blur before his eyes he frowned at the carpet, wondering why on earth he would choose something that looked so soft and comfortable to cover his floors. God he was so tired.

"You can whine all you want Danny boy, I'm not leaving."

Danny shook his head slightly, trying to gather his thoughts but no matter how hard he tried every time he gained some others seemed to fall out and become lost again. When had he asked the other man to leave? Had he really spoken? The memory was faint, the tearing pain in his raw throat like choking on acid, the words that barely sounded like words at all. Thoughts and memories danced around his head like teasing sprites intent on making him claw and clamber to get them back.

Why was Flack here at all? Why were they just seated on the floor like this? Danny had been in his bed a short while ago, hadn't he? Then Flack had done something wrong and now they were on the floor. And God he was so tired and the carpet looked so soft. Pain screamed at him as he moved but if he could just lie down and curl up he was sure it would fade away. Only there was a hand gripping his shoulder and keeping him upright.

"'ired" the blond moaned, sounding in his head like a petulant child, sounding in the air like a smoker who had coughed his lungs raw and bleeding. "Fuck off."

"Ok then Danny, lets get you back in bed so you can sleep some sense into that skull of yours." Words were traced with disappointment, though Danny couldn't quite remember what he'd done wrong. It was something to do with the dark and the laughter and the smell of smoke. Everything that happened last night was so clear and yet not. It was a little like watching one of those old fashioned foreign movies, he could see it in his mind and remember it, but when it came to understanding it or explaining it to someone else he was at a loss. And the scenes, they jumped around like the person in the editing studio had done a hack job.

Something impulsive came over him as he felt hands steady themselves under his arms again, beginning to lift his form from the floor. "No" Danny stated, pushing out angrily with his bandaged palms.

It shocked him how quickly he was lowered back to the floor, though not ungently. The blonde sat there for a moment on the royal blue carpet. Despite the pain an exhilarating feeling surged through his veins and his lips quirked up just slightly on his bruised face. It was a sudden burst of light, of good feeling that made him realise what a dark place his mind had hidden away in, and he suddenly wanted, no needed to feel that again.

"Flack" God his voice was beat up, almost as painful to his ears as it was to his own throat. "I'm gonna to sleep on the floor, not the bed."

Silence thickened between them as Danny stared at the carpet, couldn't make himself look up. If Flack said no and forced him into the bed, the blonde wasn't sure what he'd do. No, that wasn't right. Danny knew what he'd do. Another brittle piece of him would break and he would scream, cry and lose it like he'd done before when Flack had tried to get him to swallow the pills. Not that he knew why. Just knew that right now his nerves were raw and exposed, any sensation enough to grate and tear.

"Sure, just don't come to me moaning when you feel like shit because of it."

For some reason that seemed to be exactly what Danny wanted to hear. Like he'd been caught in a sudden wave of warmth water, the feeling enveloped him, tickling at his raw nerves. Laughter when it trickled from his mouth startled the blonde as much as it startled his taller friend. It wasn't much, a bare few notes but given the setting it was unexpected.

Both were quiet for a while. Flack had removed his hand at some point from the blonde's shoulder so he could lie down, but Danny wouldn't, not yet. The smaller man leaned forward on his left arm, legs crumpled beneath him in an awkward way that was painful, but not as painful as if he were to try and to move them to get into a better position. There were no bandages on his right arm except his palm. The stitches looked terrible, running on and off up his forearm to his elbow. Small burnt circles of flesh dotted the arm pink, more visible now that they weren't hidden in the blood of other wounds. Hours since the attack had allowed bruises to start to darken from their shocked red. They were more accented now, showing details: wrapped hands, fists, the material used to tie him up. Seeing them, Danny didn't want to know what the rest of his body looked like.

"Give me the pills" Danny ordered, eyes still on the unfocused carpet.

Flack just about leapt to fulfil his command, making the blonde smile again as the small blurry objects were held out in front of his face. The smile wasn't smooth, full of too many angles to look natural. It slid easily from his face when a glass of water was placed on the carpet in front of him as well. He hadn't told Flack to get that.

Still, it didn't seem to matter that much. So Danny took the pills one at a time and used the water to wash them down his dry throat. Painkillers would make this better.

Danny grew more confident, bringing his eyes up to the man's chest, though no further. It was blurred, but close enough that he thought Flack might be wearing the same shirt from last night, at the hospital. The blonde remembered staring at it while the doctor had collected the evidence. It looked like the same small smears of blood were still there from where he had noticed them last night.

"Give me the duvet" the blonde told his friend's shirt collar with a firmness he thought he had lost.

The duvet landed quickly by his foot and the tickling good feeling was back, forcing more notes out of his mouth. Danny had a feeling he could get used to this. It wasn't as good or as safe as he'd felt before last night but it was a unexpected important feeling that brought him closer to feeling all right, if only for a moment.

"Give me the pillow Flack" Danny asked, glancing into his friend's eyes for long enough to tell that Don was very confused right now. To tell the truth so was Danny, but there had been so much recently for the blonde to become confused about that he didn't want to add to it. This could be confusing, and it could stay confusing. There were other things he probably should work out first.

The pillow was held out towards him and Danny shook his head, laughing. "No, put the pillow back."

Danny could feel the frown even if he didn't look up to see it on his friend's face. But Flack did just that. The blonde laughed, curling forward more as his throat and chest started to complain. There was something hot and liquid sliding down the sides of his face.

The blonde shook his head violently as soon as he felt the whisper of finger tips on his shoulder. Abruptly his good humour vanished.

"Don't touch me" Danny stated quickly, sharply at his taller friend. And Flack didn't. Danny laughed so hard he thought his slides would spilt.

"Its about control" Stella explained later down the phone line once Danny had fallen back asleep.

"What happened to him" she still couldn't say it, not that he blamed her. "Its all about loss of control, and people need to feel in control over what happens to them Don. Right now Danny's just trying to get that back."

"So if I keep letting him feel like he has control over what's going on he'll start feeling safer?" It was half a question, half a statement but the dark haired man didn't give his colleague enough time to answer. "When he feels safer, when he gets better will he stop wigging out like this?"

A sigh and Don knew he'd said something wrong.

"Don, you know its going to take time. You know that." The woman's voice was deeper now, heavy with tiredness. "Danny's coping the best way he knows how, and right now that's all we can really ask. The only thing we can do is make sure he knows we're here when he needs us. That and solve the damn case."

"I need to do more" he whispered harshly, the words seeming to spring from his throat with desperation to do something, anything to fix this fucked up situation.

"I know" she answered in a soft voice inflected with enough sincerity to show him that Stella really did. "And you will by being there for him when he next needs you, and again after that and after that and after that. Just like you always do."

Flack leaned back against the beaten couch, resting his head on a threadbare pillow. This wasn't like any other time when Danny had needed him. It was different this time.

"I can't just be there for him Stell. That doesn't work any more, he's different. I thought it was just a short term thing. You know, the shock of it or something, but he's really changed. I can't just sit here while he's there fucked up in the head, doing all kinds of crazy. I need to do something. I need to get Danny back."

"Don" the words were sharp and reprimanding, shooting jolts straight down his spine. Swallowing, he sat up a little straighter against the couch cushions. The alarm his mother had so carefully set to jangle in his head whenever he was close to swearing in front of a woman was blaring full force. "I need you to get into your head that there isn't a magical short term solution to this. Thinking that way is not going to help Danny one bit, and so help me god Don, if you hurt him. If you hurt him by putting so much pressure on him you do not even want to guess what I will do to you."

Stella sighed down the mobile before continuing, "You know as well as I do from the cases we've seen that a victim of trauma is not someone you want to make a wrong step with. I know this time its personal, and that's terrifying but you need to keep a clear head."

Flack blinked several times inclining his head slightly to the left to watch Danny's ajar doorway. The man was still in there conked out by painkillers and curled up in a mess of blankets and pillows on the floor. The dark haired detective doubted that there was a man more stubborn in all of the world.

"Thanks Stell" he finally sighed, keeping blue eyes locked on the still wooden door and the glimpse of blue carpet behind it. "I needed a bit of perspective on all this."

"No problem" she laughed, the notes wet and nervous as if crying was what the brunette really wanted to do. "If I was cracking up you'd put me in my place too."

"You better believe it."

Laughter then silence, both of them knowing which topic was going to be brought up next and neither wanting to be the one that started it. Finally Flack steeled himself, closing his eyes for a moment as he lifted the ugly subject.

"Any word on the test results?"

It was bad enough that the detective had been there, held his friend's hand as they took all kinds of gory evidence samples from the blonde. Somehow it was almost worse that now those same samples were sitting in a brown evidence box marked with tape, or whizzing through one of those high tech machines. Contents just waiting for someone to come along and run them through CODIS, the combined DNA index system, to search to see if any of the bodily secretions left on his friend matched an ex offender.

It was something they did every day. It was almost routine, and now this was so far from routine it felt like the earth had dislodged from its axis, and life was just spinning madly, randomly by.

"I pulled some favours and got to jump some DNA samples down the line. Its still going to take much too long but if we're lucky, some or hopefully most of the samples will be entered in for testing some time tonight or early tomorrow morning."

"Then what" Flack frowned trying to remember all the things his geeky friends had taught him about how the machines worked. "Its one hour per DNA sample?"

"One hour per several samples with the new machines" there was a smile wrapped around the words. "That should speed up the process some. If we're lucky sometime tomorrow we should have some profiles, then we just need to run them through CODIS and piece together the paperwork."

Don could not help but sag a little against the back of the sofa. Sometimes he wished that all this science stuff went as fast as it did on the television shows. Assuming a normal backlog of cases, it would usually take about a week to get back a sample including paperwork. That number could double or even triple if the system was particularly crowded. Stella must have seriously pulled some major favours to be able to get the samples in for processing so soon, but the paperwork would still add another day or two before it was coherent enough to be able to request a warrant.

Up till now the man who had done this to his friend had remained a nameless entity pushed to the back of his mind by the fact that Danny had needed him. Now Don could not help but imagine warped faces and names that would appear across a computer screen blaring a match to the samples. Somehow it didn't seem to make sense that this man had both a human face and a identity, maybe even a family. In Don's mind and perhaps Danny's too the samples and injuries came from a monster.

When thinking of a monster like the boogyman who hides in the back of your closet you don't picture their face. You feel them more than see them, as something evil. With some of the worst criminals Flack had dealt with, the ones that he dreamed about hitting over and over until skin became blood, blood became tissue, tissue became bone and bone became brain matter. Even once the detective had learned what they looked like, most disturbingly normal. Flack had looked past that to their eyes and seen that although monsters have human faces, it is behind the normal that hid the monster.

Sometimes he could see that in their eyes when the detective questioned them on the crimes they had committed. A cocky movement or flash in their expression that showed how remorseless they were about what they had done. The man wondered in his anger driven state whether if he left right now, and walking the streets of New York pulled over every male he came across to stare them down he would be able to see that evil. Whether he would be able to tell from the average man on the street the one who had changed his friend so badly.

Not so drunk on anger to ignore reason Flack knew that he couldn't do that. The only way they would find out who did this was if Danny told them or the samples gave them a match. Honestly with the way the blonde had been acting, the detective was only holding out hope for the latter option.

"Mac asked how Danny's doing" Stella said quietly, "whether he's feeling better from the flu yet."

"Tell him I'm having a hard time keeping him in bed. That he's currently passed out on the floor but I'm planning on forcing chicken soup down him in a little while."

"Seriously Don, the flu?" Don could hear the incredulous tone in her voice, "don't you think that Mac will suspect something if Danny just suddenly comes down with the flu and you stay home to keep an eye on him just after you tell him one of your guys. Just after you tell him what's happened?"

He ran a palm through his short hair which had already begun to accumulate a layer of grease from its short period of neglect. After that silent phone call the previous morning a lot of things seemed to have taken the back burner to his concern for Danny.

"Mac won't suspect a thing" Flack said, voice sounding cold even to his own ears. "Because he doesn't want to. Trust me Stell, I denied it all until Danny practically told me himself. Even now I think I'm still waiting for the moment when it all turns out to be some big mistake. You, I had to tell you myself."

His voice was quieter now, but still with a solid undercurrent of conviction. "As long as we don't tell him, Mac will rationalise every coincidence as just that. He's not going to want to travel down that line of thought that leads to Danny being raped. None of us wanted to, and that alone is gonna be enough to stave him from even considering it for a while."

"But not forever" came the equally quiet, equally firm response.

Don blinked, then hunched forward over the phone. Suddenly he felt so very heavy.

"No, not forever. He's Mac; he finds everything out eventually."

The rest of the day passed along in the manner of a nightmare. Slow dreamy hours of waiting were interrupted by harsh sudden reality.

When Danny next awoke Flack did as he had said he would do on the phone and prepared some chicken soup. Not the plain kind of course, but the kind with noodles and a kick of spice. It was Danny's favourite.

This time around painkillers made the blonde more docile but also more distant. Flack was reminded painfully of times he had visited his great uncle Stanley who had been firmly entrenched in the battlefield of dementia. For nearly fifteen years before the man had passed on his wife Gwyneth had waited on him hand and foot. She had changed him, fed him and sang him soothing songs when the confusion set in, making him anxious and lost inside his mind.

At first Flack's skills were employed in prompting the smaller man who seemed to space out at the least provocation. Sometimes the distant look would be accompanied by a pained concentrated expression that furrowed his forehead, as if the blonde were solving a particularly tricky mind teaser. During those times the taller man could not help but wonder what he was thinking about. Though somehow it occurred to him that he probably didn't want to know.

Then as the meal progressed Danny's hand wavered more and more. It was no surprise; with the covering of bandage the blonde could barely grip the spoon in the first place. Stiffness seemed to have taken residence in the man's joints, adrenaline dissipated enough for the limited function to make itself known.

"Finished?" Don questioned when more soup was getting onto the man's top than it was going in his mouth.

Danny nodded, dropping the spoon to reach for the water placed on the bed side table. Don placed the bowl quickly down on the bed beside the man, reaching up in time to stop the glass from tipping over. Though the blonde was now equipped with glasses, sore muscles and groggy mind worked together to make him just as clumsy. For the most part the smaller man seemed too preoccupied or wasted to notice, just waiting patiently as Don held the glass steadily in front of his face so he could sip from the straw.

Flack had used a brightly coloured purple crazy straw that he had recovered from the bottom of the blonde's cutlery drawer. He had hoped it would make Danny laugh. It didn't.

"Whoa there mister" Flack exclaimed as his friend absently pushed aside the blankets to angle his feet over the side of the bed. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Bathroom" came the muttered response as with one palm flat on the bed and the other gripped around the edge of the bed side table he attempted levering himself to his feet. Pale face turned quickly red at the effort, but somehow Danny made it. Teeth remained gritted together like he was four miles into a five mile run instead of just trying to stay vertical.

The first thought flashing through Don's head was to simply push him back down. Then he thought back to the phone call with Stella and Danny's crazy moment a few hours back. Maybe Stella was right and control was what was important to Danny right now. As much as Don wanted to look after his friend, he also didn't want to be the one that took that away from him.

"You need any help?" the taller man asked hopefully, looking at his friend's swaying form.

Blue eyes glazed over as they looked up at him, blinking slowly. It was one of only a few moments of eye contact over the past two days and Flack had learned quickly to savour them. At the same time though they pained him, looking so different from the confident sharp gaze he was so used to. Sometimes it was really like someone else with a completely different personality had taken over his friend's body. It was hard to remember that this slumped over distant stranger was really his best friend.

Danny moved his left arm slowly from the bed, wrapping it slowly around the taller man's arm. His approach similar to the manner in which a hungry child cautiously sneaks up on a forbidden sweet food, wary of reprimanding. Don noticed that he didn't use his hand at all. It must finally be causing him some discomfort.

"Walk" the blonde ordered with reassuring steel behind the voice. He had removed his right arm from the side table, leaning into the taller man to help support his weight.

That would be a 'yes I do need help' then Flack commented mentally to himself. The dark haired man allowed a small smile to perk up the corners of his mouth, glad that for now Danny had decided to give up on arguing.

Their progress was not as slow as Flack had expected it to be. Danny held up most of his weight which made a thankful change to the day before. Every step carried with it a heavy limp which made Flack's heart jump along with it. A part of him must have expected it. But seeing his best friend wince and monitor so carefully the way that he was walking seemed quite something different and unpleasant. Particularly when every movement implanted so firmly in his mind the reason why and what he would do to the perpetrator when they finally caught him.

As Danny let go of his arm to stumble painfully onto the toilet seat, Flack thought suddenly of the stages of grief. The blonde stared pointedly at the exit and Flack left the room, closing the wooden door behind him. The detective couldn't remember all the stages, something that he admonished himself on as being in his line of business there was little excuse not to. He did remember though that one of the first was denial. Straight after the doctor with her freckles and stern glare had told him he knew he had definitely gone through that.

Another was anger, he guessed that was what he was going through now. In the past couple of days he felt anger at himself for letting this happen, anger at Danny for getting hurt again and more recently anger at whoever had been more directly responsible for Danny's wounds. Not that he believed there to be a clear reliable set model for explaining what everyone was feeling on the worst days of their lives. It did however feel better to be able to put these unpredictable surges of emotion into a nice neat box to look at.

More than all of that it made him wonder. If he was feeling so horrible and lost over this whole situation, then how on earth was Danny feeling?

A while later while Don was hurrying around his friend's kitchen, trying to clean up and decide what next meal he should try and force down the man next, he heard the shower turn on. Curious, the dark haired detective poked his head around his friend's bedroom door to stare at the adjoining bathroom. He couldn't however think of a good enough reason to go through the closed door to check whether his friend was all right.

Eventually after much hovering and mental debates he walked up to the door and rapped the wooden surface hard three times.

"Hey you doing OK in there buddy?"

"Mind your own fucking business Flack!"

Flack blinked a few times then decided to take that for a yes. He'd heard of post traumatic stress disorder, even seen the early stages of it a few times. Enough at least to know that the early reactions to a traumatic event could be deceptive which at this moment in time was comforting. Victims could take things surprisingly well then spiral out of control a few months or even years down the line. Victims could take things badly like Danny seemed to be doing and never have the symptoms long enough to warrant a diagnosis of full post traumatic stress disorder. Or sometimes they could.

Whatever the case, Danny's mood was spinning from one to the other in a manner Flack had thought only teenage girls and pregnant women could achieve. The detective made a note to look it up along with the other million questions he had accumulated.

"Well, you need me then I'm just out here. So just yell." The detective replied lamely, moving away from the door as much as he loathed to.

No set task in mind, he hovered around the room before coming to a decision. Pancakes. Danny always said that he could cook some amazing pancakes. The secret was a hint of cinnamon – a trick his grandmother had taught him.

Thankful for something to concentrate on, Flack moved to the kitchen again to gather the ingredients. There were no blueberries which was his usual ingredient. He frowned, wondering whether it was worth popping to the store for when he turned his head toward the sound of the still running shower.

No way. He wasn't leaving Danny alone, particularly when he was acting like this.

Sighing he searched the cupboards before stumbling across a container of raisins, they would do.

Ten minutes later, the first pancake was cooking in the frying pan. Flack barely looked down as he flipped it, eyes on the blonde's bedroom door and the sound of the shower behind it. There was little reason why Danny wouldn't be allowed a shower. The doctor had even made sure the stitches were waterproof for that exact reason.

Don guessed that with the amount of issues Danny already had, the doctor didn't want to add to that list by making sure that the only way the man could wash himself was a careful sponge bath. All he knew was that if something like that had been done to him, having to pay that much attention to his body while washing it would have been further torture.

He added another cooked pancake to the pile beside him on the counter top. Somehow though worry still managed to sit pointedly where it had taken residence in his stomach two days ago, now repeatedly jabbing at him least he forget it was there. He couldn't see Danny, so couldn't convince himself that he was all right.

The next pancake burnt.

Half an hour after the last drops of batter were cooked and the stove turned off, Flack approached the bathroom door again. It had been almost an hour, and though he tried to convince himself that showers could last that long something inside him refused the assertion.

"Hey Danny, you done primping yet?"

No answer. Flack frowned, wondering if he had been too casual. Whether while pretending he was talking to the old Danny he had known for years, he had inadvertently offended this new changed man who had taken his place.

"Look, I made us some pancakes. My famous recipe of course. I was just wondering when you're planning on coming out so we can eat?"

Again, no answer. Like it was mocking him, the shower kept up its steady tune.

Flack placed a hand on the door handle, the silence drawing out new worries and scenarios that flittered around his head like pesky flies. He'd never thought the time would come that he regretted a childhood of building up his imagination with comics and fiction books but that day had definitely arrived. "Dan, you don't open that door in the next ten seconds and I'm coming in."

Feeling generous, the detective allowed twenty seconds to pass before turning the metal and entering the room. Steam immediately halted his progress, the air heavy with it. Flack waited a few seconds to acclimatise to the new environment then began a slow deliberate walk toward the bath tub.

"Danny?"

The shower curtain was drawn. Its white smooth material dripping with moisture from the heavy steam. Despite sudden disorientation from the vapour Flack had control of his senses enough to check that everything else in the room was not out of place. Nothing was out of place but a pile of clothes by his feet.

He gripped a hand on the plastic curtain. Hesitated. To be honest he wasn't sure whether he was taking a step too far. Whether by doing this he was invading his friend's privacy. Whether this would be another thing that riled up Danny's mood and set his best friend against him.

"Danny. You there?" No answer.

Flack pulled back the curtain from over the solid white bath tub.

The water was pink.

It was a fact that set off alarms bells so loud that for a moment the detective could not hear the water falling inches from his head. The water trailed from Danny's curled up toes toward the opposite end of the bath and the plug hole. From the blond's hunched over position, chin on knees and arms wrapped around legs, Flack couldn't tell where the blood was coming from.

In a swift motion he switched off the shower. In response Danny increased his grip about his legs, hunched over more. The blond was probably cold.

Flack walked around the bathroom for a moment, grabbing two towels before coming back. It took longer than it should have to wrap the first around the blonde's naked form. At the base of the bath tub near the plug hole sat a pile of bandages. Bandages that had once covered the cuts that marred the man's upper back.

Only they weren't just cuts Don saw. They were letters. A word.

'PIG'

Most of the 'P' sat solely on the left shoulder blade with just the tail dripping off the edge. The 'G' started the same, in the skin on the right blade. The curve of the letter and an unsteady hand had led it to mutate so that the bottom dug into ribs. The top of the 'I' kissed softly over the vertebrae in the man's back, near the neck before sloping downward to the left in an increasingly savage manner. Or maybe that cut had started deep into the muscle and lightened as the weapon pulled upward.

Flack didn't know. That was the science side of things. Stella would know. Danny would know.

They would probably talk for hours about those wounds. About hesitancy marks, of which Don could see none. Or about how the angle each cut was made showed whether the person who had done this was right or left handed.

At least they would have talked about it if Danny hadn't been the victim.

Flack dropped to his knees and leaned over the side of the tub to wrap the largest grey towel over the man's frame. Secretly he was glad when it covered the marks so well.

"Danny?" He moved back the sopping wet hair from the smaller figure's forehead. The gesture was half caring, half desperate. Flack was surprised by how much he needed a response right now. For the blonde to look up, blink and tell him he was fine.

Danny did none of those things. Instead blue eyes remained pointed downward toward his toes. With the water turned off, the puddle beneath the blonde slowed from a dash to a meander in the direction of the plug hole. This fact had caused the pink to deepen in colour so it was more like the deep red that was its source.

Danny was still bleeding. The tinted water didn't indicate that he was bleeding too badly but that really depended on how long it had been going on for. Danny had been in the shower for almost an hour.

"Come on buddy. Where are you bleeding?" Flack was almost afraid to phrase the question. After all he wasn't too familiar with some of the more intimate wounds Danny had sustained. It was possible that this was normal. That he was over reacting. Had the doctor mentioned anything about this? He couldn't remember.

The water didn't lean any more toward red. If Danny were still bleeding then it was light, not enough to worry about. Though Flack still did.

No matter what Flack said. How he questioned, threatened, coaxed. Danny didn't raise his head from his knees or otherwise move from his curled position. The one time Don attempted moving his body, trying to force him to look at him the blonde let loose a whimper so pitiful that he had to let him go.

So with the distinct feeling that he had given in once again to his friend Don sat there with him. It crossed his mind that alone might be better for the blonde at this time, but the idea made him baulk. Danny was so out of it that Don didn't know what would happen.

Talking didn't last long before Don couldn't think of anything else that he hadn't said a million times over. Instead he moved the second towel gently through the man's hair mindful of the bump near the back of his head. The one that had panicked him so much at the hospital because it had traced blood over Danny's fair hair.

Water had been dripping from it onto Danny's face and though the smaller man made no mention of being uncomfortable Don found he couldn't bring himself to chance it. He was reminded again of his great uncle Stanley who had lost his mind before he'd lost his body. As a child he had puzzled over why on earth his wife spent so much effort nursing and taking care of him when she could put him in a home.

Now he thought he understood. There were some people you cared about so much already that really, a little bit more care was worth the effort. It was what family did.

Danny stirred, raising his head slightly to look up at him. He looked so confused like a child awaking from a dream.

"Nice to see you back among the living" Don smiled sitting back to leave the small white towel on top the blonde's head.

As if startled by the noise Danny flipped his gaze back again to fix on the bottom of the white tub. Hands pulled the grey towel tighter around his body, causing Don to notice a small dark smudge on the edge of one side. That was where the blood was coming from. The man's hand.

"Danny?"

"Flack. I messed up." The words were soft and wet. From the definite tone Don realised the blonde had been turning the statement over in his head for a while now.

"I doubt its that bad" the dark haired man said reaching for his friend's hand. "Let me see."

The wound on his palm was a little more gory than when he'd seen it being bandaged. A stitch had been pulled loose, maybe two. The wound itself was clean and had stopped bleeding but those stitches would have to be replaced. Don pulled the blonde's arm further from under the large towel, looking at the lines of stitches along the flesh. Some were tugged and annoyed but all were still intact.

"No. No Flack" Danny protested pulling back his arm. Blue eyes glinted with so many different emotions Flack failed to name them all. "I messed up. I really messed up."

With a jolt of surprise he realised that Danny wasn't talking about the damage he had done to his hands. The blonde was talking about what had happened that night. What he had done to make it happen that night.

He swallowed, mouth turned painfully dry. "Danny, it wasn't your fault."

"How can you say that Flack!" Anger through him from what little eye contact the blonde allowed him to see. It felt like an electric shock frying his nerves.

Then the shock really hit, making Flack feel like someone had replaced his stomach with a bowling ball. The taller man had been so wrapped up in his guilt that he hadn't even stopped to think that Danny might be blaming himself. At one point not long ago Flack himself had tried blaming Danny for what had happened. For getting himself in trouble again.

That fact alone was enough to raise the guilt up to the point that Flack felt he was suffocating underneath a mountain of it.

"This isn't your fault Danny" Flack stated firmly grabbing the other hand to check before the blonde could pull away. He hoped that would be the end of the conversation.

Another stitch had come loose leaving a gaping hole in its wake. It didn't look as bad as the first. Both would take seconds to suture up again, but Flack could think of no other way of doing that than returning to the hospital. He wasn't sure how Danny felt about it but right now that place had been tarnished by such bad memories that it was the last place he wanted to return to.

Well, that place and the alleyway.

"You can't say you're not thinking it too!" Danny all but roared, and though hours had soothed the sore throat there was enough pain in the action to make him cringe. "Com'n its Danny the screw up, Danny the trouble magnet. I know what they say about me in the lab. They even had poll going on when I'd next be mugged because that sort of screwed up stuff always happens to ME."

Flack didn't know what he was supposed to say to that. He was afraid to say anything in case Danny picked up the doubts. Realised the fact that though they had drifted to the back of his mind over the past day the desire to put some kind of blame on the blonde was still there.

It was because he trusted Danny so much. The idea that when it came to it the clever resourceful man he knew could do nothing to stop being raped was still too much a foreign concept to wrap his head around. He wanted so badly for nothing like that to have happened to his friend, the frustration that it had carried with it wave upon wave of blame.

The majority of that blame was still pointed at himself. Without the bogeyman behind this all having a face to point at (or pummel) that blame was left to shoot in any direction it could. Adam was to blame because he was there too that night and like Flack had not suspected anything amiss. Mac Taylor was to blame because he couldn't be there to help Stella and Flack sort it all out. The doctor was to blame for making him aware and making this his reality. Danny was to blame for being human and not being able to stop this from happening.

With a deep breath Flack pushed that line of thought to the back of his mind. Stella had been right. It would do no good to Danny's prospects of recovery if he pushed the blonde in the wrong direction. There was no room in this situation for those kind of thoughts.

"Danny" Flack said firmly, gripping the blonde's towel wrapped shoulder. The blue eyes didn't so much as look at him in response, as flitter hesitantly in his direction before returning to the interior of the white bath tub.

The dark haired man increased his hold on Danny's shoulder. Leaning in close so that his forearms were forced to rest on the edge of the bath. This close the smaller man looked even worse. Pale skin was clammy and tinted grey where blood rising through damaged tissue hadn't already coloured it red, blue or purple. Eyes were bloodshot and accompanied by tired circles.

Right now he looked more like a corpse than a living human being.

"What would I do to anyone that said crap like that about you?" Flack gently nudged the man sideways a little, trying to force some kind of reaction. "Eh?"

The words were delayed and soft, but after much deliberation the blonde finally let them spill through broken lips. "You'd kick their ass."

"Exactly. I'd kick their ass!" Flack said with a smile. "So what the heck are you thinking supposing you can get away with saying that crap as well?"

Finally eye contact and Flack made sure to savour it. There was confusion still and pain in the man's expression, but there was also understanding and fragments of trust. Then Danny rested his head once more on his knees, staring again at the white tub.

"I just" the blonde swallowed, eyes screwed up as if the words required extreme concentration. Either that or he needed his discarded glasses, but Flack was willing to bet on the former.

"I don't know what to do. I don't know how-" Danny swallowed again, attempting to control the words tendencies to break apart on his tongue. Flack remained silent knowing that this was the closest his friend had come to talking about what had happened.

Danny shook his head, not once looking anywhere near Flack. "I don't know what to do."

Flack nodded, leaning over the edge of the tub to grab the discarded towel that he had used to dry Danny's hair. With quick movements that slowed once he noticed the blonde begin to tense, the taller man dried off the floor of the bath tub before Danny's feet. Then he tossed in the man's discarded pile of clothing so that he could get changed.

"Don't worry about that Danny" Flack stated with a forced smile, trying to figure out how present his friend was right now. Whether he was here in mind enough to dress without prompting or help. Whether he would hurt himself again if Flack were to leave.

"I'll fix it" he promised with a hand still resting on the man's shoulder. Part of him was afraid that if he let go Danny would fall down or break. "I'll sort out this mess."

And he meant it.


	7. Chapter 7

Don hurried about the room. It was a mess. This was terrible. Why hadn't he thought to organise before?

Suddenly a stray thought stuck him, nearly bowling him clean over.

"What if there's a fire?" he enquired the back of the couch. "Your elevator's broke and you can't walk down the stairs!"

At length an exhausted sounding voice answered him, barely discernible above the loud antics of bugs bunny on the television. "I'll slide down the freaking banister or somethin'. Quit worrying."

"Danny" Detective Flack reprimanded the back of the furniture. "This is serious. You could get hurt."

Silence and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. Danny was already hurt.

It had been two days since Flack had taken the blonde man back to the hospital that second time to get his hands stitched up again. The time the man had scrubbed at himself so hard in the shower that the wounds on his palms had reopened. Luckily apart from red skin and minor scratches those had been the only wounds. It could have been worse.

The next day it was. Somehow while hobbling around the house, something that meant Flack had to bite his tongue to fight the urge to yell at him to lie down and rest. Danny had snuck a scouring cloth from the kitchen.

Due to continual pestering on Don's part the blonde's shower had been shorter this time. Only half an hour. Danny's hands had been red and sore, but the stitches intact.

Don had noticed how stiffly the man had been walking after he exited the bathroom but had only assumed he was tired. Whether it was all the medication the blonde had been put on or just the pain he was in Danny got tired out much faster than he used to.

It was only when Danny refused to remove the jacket he was wearing after slipping under the covers of his bed that the detective knew something was amiss. Danny hadn't spoken to him. He had just sat on the edge of his bed as the taller man removed the jacket.

Sore red marks deepened into scratches and scrapes, some of them deep enough to create long scratches that covered his stomach and shoulders. Worst affected had been the man's shoulders and thighs. Those had required cream that Don had eventually managed to find in the back of Danny's medicine cupboard. It had been designed for sunburns but worked just the same.

The next hour had been spent turning upside down Danny's bathroom and kitchen. Gathering together any material that Don considered abrasive enough to do damage while the blonde remained in his same position on the edge of his bed watching and looking worried. It had all been thrown out which would make cleaning up after cooking more difficult but was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

Neither of the two had brought up the incident since.

"Sure" came the muttered reply from the sofa. There was a shifting sound and a hiss of pain as the blonde attempted a more comfortable position. "Like I'll get hurt if the police get an apartment number mixed up and arrest me in a drug raid while you're out. Or if someone breaks in while you're gone. Or if I fall and break my hip."

Flack dragged a hand through his dark hair as he walked to the other side of the couch. A dry chuckle slid through his lips as he lowered his weight to perch on the edge of the coffee table.

"I've been that bad huh?"

Danny didn't part his gaze from Bugs Bunny who was giving some kind of weird red monster the slip. He did spare him a nod that Flack appreciated. "You've been insufferable."

The taller man let loose another wide smile at the wording. After the long unusual silences of the days before every word that left Danny's mouth felt like a gift. Every word that felt remotely like they were having a normal conversation even more so.

Danny still didn't look at him with anywhere near the ease that the taller man was used to but the talking had improved. Not that there weren't still silences. There were. Sometimes Don failed to figure out what brought them on. Sometimes there were triggers; the times after the blonde needed help eating or getting changed, the moments after he took his medication, the moments after Don accidentally forgot himself and clapped the smaller man on the shoulder.

Any time that reminded Danny of his injuries or what had happened was followed by silence. Sometimes it seemed like a passive thing. Like in a second the blonde had just slipped away behind his eyes to another time and space. In others it seemed more of an affliction.

The man would struggle for words, eyes dancing nervously as if looking for a internal dictionary that told him the right one to choose. Lips would attempt syllables but all sounds would remain vehemently locked inside his throat. It was like he forgot how to speak which if you knew Danny was impossible given how much practice he had received in the art.

Stella had said that it was probably nothing to get to worried about at this stage. That it might just be shock and nerves. Flack had made it a habit to talk over some of his concerns about Danny with her. She was after all the only person aside from him, the blonde and some hospital staff who knew what had happened enough to be able to discuss it.

Despite her reassurances Don had yet to find an off switch for his worries about Danny.

"Look Danny" Flack wet his lips nervously hoping he would manage to find the correct words to convey what he wanted to say. Ever since that night the blonde had been unpredictable to say the least. It was like now that he had regained some of his senses Danny was trying to crawl his way up to the steep hill that led to an illusive normality. Then a word or something would cause him to lose his footing and the smaller man would tumble down into confusion or fierce anger.

"If you don't want me to go today then I won't go. I still have time saved for vacation and my sister is doing real good with her drinking problems so I don't think I'll need to take time off to bail her out." God, he was rambling again.

Don set his jaw, sitting upright on the edge of the coffee table as he stared at the still figure on the sofa. He organised what he needed to say then placed it in the air between them clearly. He needed Danny to understand. "All you need to do is say the word and I'll stay here."

"Don. I'm not going to break my hip while you're gone."

That was another thing that had changed, the tone of the blond's voice. Before that night to say that Danny had been expressive was an understatement. The man had practically made communication a new art form. Every wide smile, change in tone or bouncing feet had meant something new.

Now though, movements were stilted and voice hardly moved from its one flat tone. All in all it made communication with the other man odd and problematic. It had become particularly difficult to tell whether or not Danny might be joking.

Don decided to assume it was a joke. He also decided to assume that it wasn't a funny one.

The taller man stood from his perch on the edge of the coffee table. Despite running his hands self soothingly through his dark crop of hair the detective was still worried. However, he had finally accepted that that fact might not change.

"You have water on the side" Don pointed to the two bottles lined up on the dark wood table in front of the curled up blond. There was also a small collection of two pills lying next to them, white on the dark surface. Next to those sat a small covered bowl of soup along with various cereal bars.

It was unlikely that Danny would eat those. It had been roughly four days since Don had found the smaller man huddled in the alleyway. Almost four and a half days since he had waved goodbye to the man from the taxi before heading home.

Danny's throat was among the many injuries that still aggravated him. Soft foods were preferred. Anything too harsh would bring tears of pain to his eyes if he tried to eat it. Followed by a coughing fit that sounded so painful that it brought liquid to Don's eyes just watching it.

Still Don couldn't bear the thought of leaving the man without enough to eat. Danny's appetite had become more like his mood recently. Inconsistent at best.

"You can take your next dose of painkillers at twelve. I've set your phone to go off then." Don didn't say why he had only placed one dose within the blond's reach. Why the other pills were hidden at the very top of the kitchen cupboard where Danny could not see or get to them.

Danny hadn't talked about harming himself. Nor had he with the exception of the shower incidents. Still, there was something in his subdued manner and disconnected states that made Don wary. That made Don question a thousand times over whether it was wise to leave Danny alone right now.

A big part of him screamed that it wasn't time. That he didn't trust this new Danny to remain safe while he was gone. However another part countered and this was the part he chose to listen to. Don wasn't sure if he would ever consider it was time to leave Danny alone after this.

There had to be a time where he chanced it and it wasn't like he could hire a babysitter while he was gone.

If he took any more time off there was no way Mac wouldn't become suspicious. Not that a part of him didn't still want that to happen but he had promised Danny. There was no way he would allow himself to become a liar in the blond's eyes right now.

So there was only one thing to do. Don had to trust the blond when he said that he would be alright. That he would still be whole and breathing when the detective came back from work.

Still, he could not help but make one last request before he straightened out the last things and left the apartment. "Dan. Just promise me you won't try and take a shower while I'm out."

To Don's relief the small blond head on the sofa gave a small nod in reply, never once looking away from the cartoons.

When walking to the elevator that led to the police laboratory floor you had to first pass through a room filled with desks. It was here that numerous detectives and other officers carried out the forgotten back bone of police work – paper work. It was here that Flack's rather disgruntled commanding officer managed to corner the him on his way to talk to Stella.

"Detective Flack. My office now." Despite being a cop since straight out of high school those words still managed to make him feel like no time had really passed. Like he was still a fresh faced rookie feeling like the world was going to end every time anyone with a higher rank slid a reprimand his way.

An officer Flack had worked with enough times over the years to become friendly caught his gaze from across the heaving room of manned desks. With a barely hidden smirk the man drew a finger across his neck. An exaggerated alarmed look making his eyes increase in size.

Flack suppressed the urge to glare. Bunch of wise guys he worked with...

"Listen sir, if this is about the time off I took recently"

Lieutenant Sythe shot a sharp glance that made the detectives mouth snap shut obediently. Whatever had pissed the man off it was bad enough that best course of action seemed to be silence. Or else he could end up putting his foot in his mouth and make the situation a hundred times worse. So much for thinking that after four tense days of playing nursemaid, work would be a piece of cake.

"Why is it that mere hours after you call in sick I get the director of the crime lab down here offering his condolences about a dire situation that happened in my department? To one of my men?" The usually calm man's face was turning an odd shade of red.

Here was a hole in his plan that he did not anticipate. Thinking back Flack knew he should have known that would happen. The police force was a tight knit group except for the odd departmental cliques. It was obvious that Mac would try and offer support however possible even when he had agreed to not be directly involved in the case.

"Of course I have no idea what the man is talking about. So I ask who told him this information. Why Detective Don Flack he says as if I already know. The detective who is working on the case." The lieutenant smoothed wrinkled palms over greying hair, pacing the office with all the grace and silence of a large elephant.

Flack took a nervous step back toward the closed doorway, careful to keep a level of distance from his supervisor.

Lieutenant Sythe shot another piercing glare in his direction and Flack stopped moving.

"The only case I have you clocked on is the dodgy murder in that residential neighbourhood. So I ask him if he means that one. No he doesn't he says. Then he gets an odd look on his face and asks me if I know the case he is talking about. Of course I do I tell him. I know everything that goes on in this department!"

The detective swallowed deciding for self preservations sake it was best to keep his mouth shut until a question requiring a definite answer was phrased.

Finally Sythe let out a breath. Setting his weight down in the chair behind his flimsy wooden desk he fixed the younger man into a pointed gaze.

"I suggest you start explaining why one of my detectives is working a case that I haven't been told about."

His cue. Oh boy, Flack did not feel ready. Although he had explained the situation to Mac, and sort of explained it to Stella his tongue still seemed to have little idea how to put the words together. Perhaps it had something to do with the past four days spent skirting around the issue.

Don didn't know quite who enforced it but neither he or Danny addressed what had happened directly. The conversation days ago in the shower after the blonde had injured himself the first time had been the closest they had gotten to talking about it. Maybe that was wrong of him not to push. All he knew was that this skirting they did hurt a hell of a lot less for both of them than addressing what had happened.

"Its a rape case Sythe. Involving an officer as a victim" There, like ripping off a bandage the words were in the air. It still stung. Even without mentioning his close relationship with said victim it still stung.

Watching the wind fall from his commander's sails Flack reflected on the power of that one word. 'Rape'. Four little letters. Everyone who worked in law enforcement seemed to know the power of that word. Even if not all could comprehend the suffering caused to people. To families. To friends. To lives.

Everyone knew the messy blunt power of that word.

"Is it one of mine?" The man's voice had gone from 'bad-ass boss' to quiet concerned party in seconds. He leant forward on the desk, body language fighting between shocked surprise and indignation.

Flack unconsciously tensed. "I can't tell you who it is."

"And why the hell not?"

That was a good question. His deal with Danny had not mentioned Sythe at all. The only one he had promised to keep out of the loop was Mac Taylor, Danny's boss. There was nothing stopping him from telling his own boss.

Still somehow the idea of diverging his best friend's secret to anyone else tasted horribly traitorous.

"Sythe you can't tell Mac anything. I know you guys talk."

Lieutenant Sythe narrowed his eyebrows. "So you're not only keeping things from your supervisor. You're hiding case details from a department head too?"

"I promised him I wouldn't let Mac know who he is. It wasn't my intention to leave you out of the loop on this. Things have just been really hectic."

The older man's sharp gaze softened somewhat. He shifted in his chair with a level of unease that Flack had never witnessed on his supervisor before. Maybe the confirmation that the victim was a male had kicked Sythe into truly unknown territory. Sure, it might not be politically correct but it wasn't like they were used to male victims of sex crimes around here. Particularly not victims who were male police officers.

"It was one of your lab rat friends wasn't it?"

Or maybe Sythe had just proved his worth as a detective. After all for what other reason would he be so concerned about keeping this from Mac and yet forget to even approach the situation with his own supervisor. The more Don thought about it the more surprised he was that Mac hadn't guessed it as well. "Listen Sir"

The lieutenant cut him off, which was a good thing as Flack really had no idea what he would say next.

"You know you could have come to me about this Flack. I'm your supervisor. I'm here to help you out when you get hit by situations like this."

Flack couldn't stop the next words from spilling from his throat. They felt as dry and tasteless in his mouth as he was sure they sounded in the air of the office. "You're here to help me when my friend gets raped Sythe?"

Barely fazed the man nodded. "Among other things."

Sieving through words to find the most polite way of phrasing something was a skill Flack's mother had taught him with care. Somehow now it just didn't seem important anymore.

It was as if the conversation had drained him to the point that all non essential functions had shut down. The world shifted to a dulled grey and he could not bring himself to care about what others would think of him. There was also the inkling feeling that if he stayed trapped in this conversation any longer he might scream or cry. He wasn't sure which, just that it would be violent.

"I have other things to do Sythe."

Perhaps the elder man sensed the tension because he didn't put up a fuss, just nodded his head. "I can hold off on the specifics for a while but you are not keeping me out of this case like you did with Taylor. I expect full access."

"Sure" Flack was just glad that he wasn't demanded a name of right there and then. It still seemed too much of a betrayal to Danny.

"And Flack. This case starts giving you trouble then I'll be taking charge. There's no sense doing a half ass job in a case like this one."

Even in his dire mood Flack almost managed a smile. As gruff as the phrasing was the detective knew it was Sythe's way of offering a hand. Though Don still felt like he had to see this case through himself it was nice to know that help was there in case he needed it.

Later, riding the elevator to the floor of the crime lab somehow he felt lighter. Despite the pain he could not help but feel during the conversation, knowing there was someone there who had his back in all of this was reassuring. It was like some of the heaving weight had been lifted from atop his shoulders. Only a little bit, but enough that he could feel the difference.

The crime lab looked the same. That seemed wrong. The last time he had been here was the evening after he found Danny in the alleyway. It had been, as evenings usually were, dark and cold. The gloom had suited the occasion perfectly.

Now in the daylight the lab had returned to its usual busy friendly place. When the woman in charge of admin flashed Flack a smile in passing, he had to fight the urge to scowl back. It seemed almost disrespectful to realise that while he and Danny had been dealing with hell everyone else's lives went on as if nothing had happened.

On his way navigating the maze of glass covered rooms to find Stella he met Monroe instead.

Her soft smile of greeting dropped into a wide eyed look of 'what the hell' in comical speed. She picked up her pace, strands of her shoulder length brown hair escaping a hasty bun to brush against her face. Until she stopped in front of him, craning back her neck to scrutinise his features despite her short form being dwarfed by his advantage of nearly an entire foot in height.

Flack could only raise a wearied brow in question as the woman took to her tip toes. Pursing lightly pinked lips in concentration she grasped his jaw with an deceptively firm grip, turning his head from side to side as if it might better help her to read his expressions.

Then she stepped back, staring up at him with huge wide eyes. "You look like shit Flack!"

"Er" he shrugged "Thanks?"

"No you look terrible" Lindsay continued as if he hadn't quite appreciated her assessment.

To be honest Flack hadn't noticed that much. He'd been spending the last few days just worrying about Danny. He couldn't even remember the last time he had glanced in a mirror. Which was odd since Flack was definitely a guy who appreciated his good looks.

Nevertheless this conversation was not achieving much so onward he went to a small layout room Stella had said she would be. Unfortunately Lindsay followed.

"Seriously Flack I've seen dead people that look better than you."

If this were a conversation with Stella, or with Danny before what had happened Flack would have assumed the other person was making fun of him. With Lindsay he wasn't so sure. When she wanted to be she could be really funny. Side spliting, rip roaringly funny.

However when she was trying to act on being concerned, she could be funny too. Just very unintentionally funny. Which wasn't so fun. Heck, all the males in the lab, maybe even the whole city were better at expressing their empathy than Lindsay was.

"I saw our alley victim again. He's been dead for four days and he looks better than you, above the waist I mean. Not that I'm saying I know that you look good below the waist. I mean-"

"Lindsay would you shut up! The whole fucking lab gets that I look like shit today!"

Then there it was, the wide doe eyed look of hurt. Oh boy. And the way she immediately blinked furiously as if trying to bring back the familiar steel look she wore to cover up how much something had damaged her feelings. In less than a second the vulnerability was gone and in its place was a hard but still worried gaze.

Somehow that managed to make Flack feel even more guilty.

"Look Flack I'm really sorry." The words were even but the mask of resilience broke a little. Just enough so that he could see the cracks of pain and confusion behind the schooled features.

This was hard for her. He got that. Lindsey was not a gal who was apt in sharing feelings of most sorts and areas of sadness were by far her least skilled area. On top of that as diminished as her skills of expressing sadness were they were far superior to her ability to deal with those kinds of emotions in others.

He could imagine clearly what was going on in her head right now. Her friend who usually joked with her was in emotional pain. She seemed to have cottoned onto that. Now what could she do about it...

And that was exactly where her brain would freeze in place because as much as she seemed to ache to do something to help she rarely seemed to be able to grasp what that something was.

Flack offered his friend a smile because it hurt him just as much to see her in pain as it tormented her to see him hurting. "Its ok Linds. I over reacted. I'm just really tired."

The woman glanced up at him before staring at the wall of the corridor, a section that was not actually see through like a lot of the rest of the building. She crossed arms firmly about her chest before she looked at him again out of the corner of her eye, like a child afraid of being scolded.

"No. Just listen a minute Flack. I just wanted to say that I am sorry for showing you the, uh" she pressed her lips to a fine line "the unmentionable before you left. I really didn't think about it but I should have so I'm sorry."

Flack frowned, thinking for a moment then grinning despite himself when he figured out what she was going on about. "What you mean the rats breakfast? Is that what you're so wound up about?"

"Yeah, I mean" Lindsay threw her arms wide in illustration, finally meeting his gaze fully. "I show you it and you freak out. Then only hours later part way through the case you leave. Then after hours of no contact I get told that you're taking some personal time. So I'm here freaking out that I made you freak out. And – Hey stop laughing!"

The detective couldn't help it. After all that had happened over the past few days the very idea that he was still upset over a little shock was hilarious. And he found he missed laughing. He could not pin point the last time he had the opportunity to laugh this much. Perhaps that night at the bar, before everything that happened. They had laughed a lot that night.

Lindsay Monroe turned a bright shade of red. "I take it from your reaction that this wasn't about the 'rats breakfast' was it?"

He smiled wanting to hug her tight for giving him the chance to feel a little bit of humour again. It felt so good he couldn't describe it. "Linds, you really think I'd freak out over that after all the things we've seen?"

Frowning up at him the petite woman crossed arms firmly across her chest again. Her body language had changed in a second from 'oh shit' to 'you asshole'.

"Do you mind. I was going to be all sensitive and consoling you ass! Then you just laugh at me!" A glint in her brown eyes showed humour. The edge to her stance showed deep irritation born no doubt from days of worry.

"You consoling?" Flack chuckled, shaking his head as if trying to imagine it. "How were you going to manage that?"

"I had some ideas" Lindsay countered, glaring up at him as though her eyes were deadly weapons.

"Really" he said, not fazed at all by her sour mood. "Were any of them any better than 'you look like shit'?"

A pause. Then her shoulders slumped, combat stance deflated in an instant. The words were mumbled but he understood them perfectly. "No. Not really".

The man grinned before deciding to put the southern woman out of her misery. "Look. It wasn't about you Linds. I got a call from Danny."

His grin only slipped a little. Who could have guessed he had never had an acting lesson in his life? "The idiot managed to catch something and you know what a baby he can be when he's sick. So I drop out of work to take him to see a doctor. Didn't get a chance to call you guys for a few hours. Then after all my good charity he gives me a bit of the bug too, so I got laid up for the next few days."

Monroe smiled. "That's our Danny. He's such a giver."

"Right" even though he felt bad lying there was something about finally getting to speak to a friend that knew nothing of what had happened that was so rewarding. It was like for a moment Flack could pretend that the past few days had been normal. That he still had the same Danny as a friend that Lindsay knew. Not the changed person that had taken his place.

"So he's still laid up, but the doc says he'll be just fine. And yes I do look like shit, and I sure as hell feel like shit too. Happy?"

"Very much so, but. Uh. I'm gonna go over here now so I don't catch any weird mutated Danny virus off you." She backed away still facing him, as if afraid he might take the opportunity to pounce if she turned her back to him. With a final smile she bid him farewell with a quick wave. "Tell Danny I'm going to have to make him wear a mask when he gets back if he's that contagious. There is no way I want to catch whatever you got."

Problem solved and friendship mended Flack continued his search.

It only took him another minute. Stella had situated herself in one of the smallest and most isolated layout rooms. She looked so sad that Flack almost asked her what was wrong. Then he realised what a stupid question that would be. They both already knew what was wrong.

On the layout table was an evidence box. Written on the side in sharp black ink was the case number assigned to Danny.

He stepped in silent for a moment. Flack had put this off for longer than he should have. It was strange, he had wanted the results of the analysis so badly. Standing here now a evidence box filled with his best friend's clothes in front of him he hesitated.

Stella looked up, gracing him with a smile as he shut the door behind him. To Flack it only resembled a grimace.

"You can back out any time Don" The woman said, seeming to read his mind as usual. "There are other detectives who can work the case if I need help. This is too close to you."

"And what about you Stell?" The detective would like to think the words came out calm and professional. That neither of them heard a tell tale croak eroding the syllables. "Are you going to tell me all of this means nothing to you? That you aren't close to this too?"

A shake of the head. Brown curls battered against the air fiercely. "You know I care about Danny just as much as you do. But I'm not the one who has to be there every day helping him through this. You're already fighting one battle and its OK if you aren't up for taking on another just now. I can fight this one."

Lips quirked upwards as he offered her a smile, and just for a moment it almost felt genuine. "Look Stell. I know I've got to be more hands off with this one but you can't ask me to walk away from this. I've got to help to try and fix this mess."

A moments silence as she seemed to study him. Eventually the piercing gaze was dropped and the woman took two steps to the left to make room by the layout table for the other detective. He had passed the test for now at least. Though there was something in her grudging movements that suggested strongly to him that if she sensed any signs of this arrangement not working she would not hesitate to remove him from any involvement in the case.

"The cuts on his back" she started and he could not help but tense.

Looking at the picture of the wounds helpfully placed on the table made no difference. All Flack would ever see was that moment in the shower. Or afterwards when covering the cuts with a bandage after Danny had finally admitted that his inability to go to sleep was due to his shirt rubbing against the uncovered stitches.

Though the photograph had been taken at a time closer to their formation somehow the cuts still seemed more raw and more horrifying in his memory. He was glad Stella had not had to witness that yet.

"I've seen them" Don stated gruffly. "Do you think they found out he was a cop?"

She nodded, keeping her eyes on the evidence in front of her and not on the man at her side. "But what's curious is that Danny didn't have anything in his affects that said he was the member of the police force. Anything that so much as hinted he was a cop, his badge, his gun he left in his locker that night."

The man closed his eyes for a moment, a headache forming. "So this wasn't a random act of violence. They knew he was a cop and targeted him because of it?"

Pressing tense lips together Stella briefly shook her head in frustration. "I don't know Don. Either that or Danny told them. Or maybe we have it all wrong and the 'pig' isn't meant as a derogatory term for a cop but for something else."

"What I can tell you though is that whoever made those cuts was cold and calculating. There are a few hesitancy cuts at first, but after that nothing other than a couple of discrepancies that indicate he had to adjust his grip at various points. Left handed and strong is about all I can tell you about the guy. Some trace that came back as steel dust, but with no context that's not making sense at the moment."

His hand shook and he had to fight to hold back the anger rising at the lack of answers. Despite his experience in the field part of him still wanted this to be wrapped up as quickly as in those cop shows. If this were one of those shows they'd probably all be having some kind of victory celebration right now with all the perps behind bars.

"Did you find anything to go on Stell?"

"Yes. Listen I didn't tell you before because you were dealing with Danny and I didn't want to make you come in when he might need you. And I don't want you to feel you have to be involved in this part."

Suddenly her hands were gripping his arm tight, steel gaze boring into his own. He knew what she was doing. The greek woman was attempting to stabilise him. To keep him from doing some destructive act she knew he would commit if she uttered the next words.

"What Stell? What do ya' mean by this part?" It was difficult to keep the bite from invading the syllables.

"The DNA samples. They gave us a name, but listen we've already brought one of them in. We've got him Flack. You don't need to be involved in this part."

Apparently Stella knew his reactions better than even he did. Knew how despite his intention to remain calm and detached from the case, the moment the monster had a face the desire to pummel it was so bad he could barely breathe. Then as his mind processed the sentence more the air around him seemed to grow thinner.

"There was more than one?" All this time it had only been one monster in his imagination. The idea that there were two people out there evil enough to do this to his friend had been unthinkable. It was difficult enough to grasp that one man had hurt his friend.

The idea he had been building over the past couple of days. Of standing back and being a supportive but passive participant in this case seemed laughable.

"Listen Flack-"

"Where's the other one Stell?"

"Flack you've got to be-"

"No Stell. Where is the other man who did this to my friend?" Gritted teeth were the only thing that prevented the words from being shouted.

"We picked up the first guy mere hours after the bolo was put out. And I promise you Don we'll get the other guy too. I'm handling this Flack and if you can't be in control over yourself then I don't want you near this part of the case. There is no way you are going to mess up my chances of a conviction. You just have to trust me and stay away from this part of the case. You just have to trust me."

He could hear his own words echoing in his head. That he knew he had to be hands off in this one, and he did but this was too much to ask. Stella hadn't seen Danny in that alley. Stella hadn't seen the kind of damage this had done to their friend.

Before he realised it his hand was moving towards the file, fingers flicking though pages of stats and graphs before they found the right one. Flack took a breath taking in the information from the codis match.

"Flack?"

Ever since that moment in the alley. Ever since he had seen Danny sitting in that hospital bed. Ever since he had seen in that shower how they had carved up his friend's back. He had been waiting for this moment.

The monster – monsters now had a face. Fists shook with the realisation that now here were the real targets he had been searching for. These were the real ones to blame for what had happened to his best friend.

One of them was just downstairs. On impulse he took a step toward the door.

"Flack. No!"


End file.
